Letters from Hell
by Edhla
Summary: Faced with the case of his career, Lestrade enlists Sherlock and John to help him take down a serial killer hunting prostitutes in Whitechapel. He calls himself Jack the Ripper. But Sherlock is fighting his drug demons, and John is hiding a dark secret. All three will be brought to breaking point.
1. Murder Before Dawn

_**A/N:**_ _This is the twelfth, and probably the last, fic in an AU/canon continuation series that begins with_ After the Fall. _All previous fics are available from my profile. Further notes at the end of the chapter._

* * *

At a quarter to five in the morning on the tenth of January, John Reeves left his flat to go to work and found a dead woman in a pool of blood on the first-floor landing.

Lestrade, on a run of night shifts to subtly punish him for having the past week off, had shown up on the scene thirty-three minutes after being called. The cause of death, at least, wasn't a mystery: stabbing. One of the most enthusiastic stabbings he'd seen in recent years. The woman's black jacket had more holes in it than Swiss cheese; Lestrade had casually counted more than a dozen of them there on the spot.

"So you just found her like that, out of the blue?" he asked Reeves, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. Even indoors, and with gloves on, they were freezing. "You didn't hear a scuffle beforehand or anything?"

Reeves, a young dockside labourer who wore a pair of outlandish gold earrings, stood at the bottom of the stairs, hugging himself. "Oh, I heard a lot of that going on last night," he said. "Brawls going on all night down in the street. Trouble is, I didn't think it was important."

Lestrade looked suddenly attentive. "What exactly did you hear?"

"Voices." Reeves ran his hand over his thinning black hair. "Women, mostly, but there were a couple of men down there too. A lot of screaming."

"What time did this happen?"

"All night, on and off. Half eleven. Half midnight. One o'clock. I was pretty pissed off about that. Got to be in bed and asleep before ten if I'm up early for work." Reeves looked around regretfully. "You promise you'll have a word to my boss? I _need_ this job, Mr. Lestrade. I-"

"It'll be fine, Mr. Reeves," Lestrade said. "I'll have a word with your supervisor and explain what's happened. They're not going to fire you because you found a body and had to help the police." He had no doubt that Reeves was telling the truth about needing his job. George Yard, the grubby little tenement building they were standing in, was only a slight improvement on the streets. Here and there on the landing were puddles of rainwater where the roof guttering and insulation had failed. Just the thing for washing away evidence.

"Now anyway," Lestrade went on. "These brawls you heard. A lot of screaming. Did you find out what was going on?"

"Sounded like drunk idiots to me," Reeves said frankly. "You get a lot of pub spillover on a Saturday night around here. You-looked-at-my-wife-the-wrong-way, you-pinched-my-last cigarette crap. When everyone's pissed, it can get pretty nasty."

"Were the police called?"

Reeves shrugged. "No idea, sorry. Me and the wife didn't call them. The last time I heard anything was around two." He looked thoughtful. "Actually, though," he said. "That sounded like just the one woman screaming that time."

"In here, or down in the street?"

"Couldn't tell. In the street, I guess; I'd have gone out to see what was wrong if I thought someone was in the building screaming. Safe is safe, right?"

"Right…" Lestrade spoke vaguely, gaze straying to the lower staircase. Sherlock Holmes - coat, scarf and all - had just arrived.

And he seemed determined to make it clear to everyone that he was attending the scene under sufferance. Attitude popping off his skin like static. Jake Dyer, on his way down to the first level with an elderly lady who lived in one of the landing flats, offered him a cheerful greeting on his way past. Sherlock gave him as much acknowledgement as he gave the spider holding court in its web under the second-floor stairs.

Lestrade sighed. Today he was going to be wrangling with an overgrown toddler—without the toddler's usual wrangler around, it seemed. "No John?" he asked Sherlock lightly, knowing full well that 'hello' or any of its variants would be a waste of breath.

"He couldn't find a babysitter at 5am," Sherlock said, without looking at him. He got down on his heels beside the dead woman and looked her over carefully, then leaned closer, ran his fingers along her shirt, and hesitantly sniffed her.

To be fair, Sherlock's policy of sniffing—and sometimes tasting—a murder victim often made sense. But in the close, dark stair landing of George Yard building, it was impossible to not be blasted in the face by the smell about the dead woman: body odour and alcohol, probably whisky.

"What do you think?" Lestrade asked at length.

"Why am I even here?" Sherlock got to his feet. "There's nothing interesting about this."

"Too bad, sunshine." Lestrade still spoke lightly, but he wasn't smiling. "You know perfectly well why you're here. You get to do three things for the next month, and only three: attend rehab, help John out with his family, and solve crimes for me. I've got plenty of those to keep you off the Colombian marching powder, if you're worried we'll run out. We can go through the cold case files—unsolved murders dating back to the 1880s. I wouldn't mind being the DI who solved the Pimlico Torso Murders."

"This is absurd. It barely even qualifies as a mystery."

"We don't even know her _name."_

"Readily available information that you haven't retrieved isn't a mystery either." Sherlock glanced over to the landing staircase they'd just come up. Sally Donovan had just arrived, bunched up in a green woollen coat, a white knitted cap shoved over her dark curls. She stopped for a second at the top of the stairs, looking at him in honest surprise; for a second he thought she was going to come over, but at the last second a PC in uniform came down the second-floor stairs and drew her aside to ask her something.

"But here," Sherlock went on, dismissing Donovan for the time being. "I'll hand feed you the information a few minutes early, if you like. The victim is in her late thirties or early forties. She was once married, but is now separated, and probably has at least one child. She's lived a difficult life, but didn't sleep rough last night. She was a part-time prostitute. She was an alcoholic and was probably drunk at the time she died. She also suffered from malnutrition, high blood pressure and, probably, kidney disease. She was adenoidal and a snorer."

"And she was in here sheltering from the cold?"

"In a manner of speaking. She came here with a client, who murdered her."

"Okay, just for my own amusement," Lestrade said. "Where'd you get all that from?"

"Her age is obvious from her hands—they're a much better indication of age than her face or neck, both of which are prematurely aged, indicating a harsh lifestyle. The way she's dressed says both 'prostitute' and 'part-time': these are clothes of an otherwise average level of modesty, arranged to look like she was advertising. She's done very little but undo a few buttons and dispense with stockings and underwear. If she was a career prostitute, she'd have invested in that career in terms of her clothing."

"Okay," Lestrade muttered.

"The dark rings around her eyes and blue marks on her fingertips indicate malnutrition and suggest kidney disease, especially, as is likely from the smell on her, she was an alcoholic. High blood pressure is an educated guess, since she was overweight, drank, and ate poorly. Her nose and mouth composition suggests an adenoidal problem, and people with adenoidal problems snore." He indicated the dead woman's face. It was true that her eyes were blue-rimmed, though closed; her mouth was hanging open, as if she might let out a loud snore any moment.

"Okay," Lestrade said, grateful that Sherlock was at least talking to him now. "What about the bit about being separated from her husband?"

"She's wearing a wedding ring on a chain around her neck."

Lestrade folded his arms, making a monumental effort to hold in a sigh. "Maybe it just doesn't fit her finger."

"Did you _see_ her fingers? The ring fits. If she'd been widowed, she'd still be wearing it, either in its usual place or on her right hand. If she was divorced, she'd have got rid of it. But no; she's hiding it under her clothing. Therefore, separated. But the husband isn't a credible suspect, so look elsewhere for your murderer."

"Why?"

"She wasn't sleeping here on the landing—if she'd come here to sleep she would have arranged her clothes and belongings in the space around herself, the way those sleeping rough do. She's not well-dressed, but her clothes are in fairly good condition, yet she brought no blanket here with her. But the big giveaway is her legs. No stockings, no underwear. In this weather?"

"What I want to know," Donovan broke in, having extricated herself from her conversation with the PC and wandered over, "is how come I'm hearing that _three people_ saw her lying here before Reeves did, and none of them were bothered?"

"Welcome to Whitechapel," Lestrade said grimly. "Not uncommon in these parts for people to sleep rough anywhere they can. If they're quiet, people tend to just leave them alone."

"She was certainly quiet," Donovan said acidly. "Dead quiet. Anyway, Genius, what are you doing here? Nothing weird about this one. Sex worker killed by a client."

"Sherlock owes me a favour," Lestrade said before Sherlock could venture a word. "And I want to get this one wrapped as quickly as possible before the press gets wind of it and start carrying on about a serial killer on the loose."

She grinned. "A serial killer case might be just the free advertising you need, Silver Fox."

"Oi," Lestrade said. "Do you want a payrise in the next decade or not?"

In November of the previous year, Lestrade had been interviewed on camera for a BBC documentary about the murder of Mona Flemming by her son Justin in 1999. The case had been Lestrade's first major breakthrough, his ingenuity almost certainly putting Justin behind bars, and he'd done it without the help of Sherlock Holmes. To his mind, the interviews had been all business. But the night it had aired, just the week before, someone on Twitter had tweeted: "#IntentToKill Who is THAT? #SilverFox" and the name had stuck. Two days before, he'd even been recognised by a woman in a Tesco's. It had turned bizarre when she'd absent-mindedly started caressing his chest like she was afflicted with the King's Evil. Melissa had laughed the whole car ride home.

But Sherlock didn't take up the opportunity to dig Lestrade about his media appearances. Instead, he crossed the landing to the lower staircase, going down it and then up again. Then he moved to the upper staircase, on the way to the Reeves's flat, and did the same thing, darting up and down first on the left, and then on the right.

"What's up?" Lestrade asked him.

"Is the body exactly the way she was found?" Sherlock asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

"It's a provocative position. Her knees are bent apart, suggesting sexual assault, but you'll see her arms are straight and by her sides."

"Hands bunched into fists," Lestrade said, looking down at her again. "Not something we'd expect to see from a woman who fended off an assault."

"Very likely she was too drunk to defend herself, if not actually unconscious. Then she was posed," Sherlock said. "Posed in a sexually violent manner for the first person down the staircase in the morning to see."

"Great," Lestrade said. "So we're looking for a psychopath… stop smiling, Sherlock. Or we'll be spending the next six months tracking down the perpetrators of every nineteenth century unsolved murder in the East End. There's a few of them."

* * *

After securing the crime scene and deputising the detective workforce under him, Lestrade went back to Baker Street with Sherlock. This was ostensibly to continue with the case, though it was obvious that he wanted an excuse to sit down and have a decent breakfast before what was probably going to be a sixteen-hour shift. It was still dark, and bitterly cold, when they reached the street door. Sherlock let them in with the key, but as the took off their coats in the hall the front door of 221a opened. John looked tired and haggard, but he was awake and dressed, and his damp hair indicated he'd just stepped out of the shower.

"Sorry," Lestrade said to him.

"I was up," John replied. "New case?"

"It's a good one," Lestrade said, ignoring Sherlock's scoff and eye roll.

"Come in," John said. "Don't worry about whispers; Charlie's awake."

"Play time?"

"Still between three and five in the morning," John said with a light sigh, letting them in. "Then I can't keep her awake until lunchtime…" He led both of them through into the kitchen, where Charlie was standing near the table. She was rugged up in pink pyjamas and a knitted hat shaped like a cupcake, and dragging a naked baby doll along the floor by one arm.

"Baby," she announced as they came in.

"You've no idea yet, kid," Lestrade said.

"Hoping having a baby of her own will help it sink in," John agreed. "I mean, she's seen her sisters, but I don't think it's dawned on her yet that they're ours and we're going to be taking them home at some point."

"Have fun with her on that blessed day," Lestrade said, sitting down at the table. No sooner had Sherlock taken a seat opposite than she put the doll in his lap, none too gently.

"Sherwee baby?" she said.

"Oh," Sherlock said awkwardly, picking it up. "Er. Thank you, Charlie… oh, what are you two smirking for _now?"_

John, exchanging an amused grin with Lestrade, pointed to the doll. "Sorry," he said. "But come on, that was funny. She's been dragging that thing around by the foot since Christmas…"

Sherlock realised, with an odd sort of pang, that he had the doll lying in his arms like a real baby. With a scowl, he handed it back to Charlie. By one elbow.

"Are you in the right mood to read one hell of a medical report, John?" Lestrade continued, bringing out a small file that Dyer had printed off for him at the crime scene and passing it across the table.

"I could be," John said easily, taking the papers. "A medical report about what?"

"Early on New Year's Day, a woman named Emma Smith arrived at the Royal London hospital in a pretty terrible state. She said she was walking up Brick Lane when three or four young men started following her. She thought they were just drunk idiots giving her a hard time, so she ignored them. They stopped her on the corner of Wentworth Street and attacked her. They emptied out her purse and left her lying in the street, so you'd think the motive was robbery, but it's what they also did to her that has me wondering. I've dealt with a lot of muggings, but that's the first time I've heard of anyone doing _that_ during one."

 _"Jesus,"_ John muttered, having just reached _that_ in the report. He got out of his chair. "Sorry," he said, "do you mind if I put Charlie in her playpen for this? She's started repeating what people say. I don't want her to come out with the word r-a-p-e for a few years yet."

As John took Charlie into the living room, Sherlock and Lestrade exchanged a look.

"Does he seem all right to you?" Sherlock asked.

"God, no," Lestrade responded.

"Charlie is clean and well-fed, and the flat is spotless."

"Yeah, exactly. An eighteen-month-old kid lives here, and it's spotless…" Lestrade trailed off as John came back in. He shut the screen door connecting the living room with the kitchen and sat back down at the table, picking up the report in a businesslike way. After reading for half a minute in silence, he put it down and looked at Lestrade in disbelief.

"She _walked_ to the hospital after that?" he finally said. "How far was it?"

"Five hundred metres, roughly."

"Jesus. What did they think she was raped with?"

"She couldn't explain when asked, but they think it was something like a broom handle. Lapsed into a coma an hour or two after being admitted, and she died last Thursday, poor bugger." Lestrade got up as his phone started to ring, the sound muffled by his jacket pocket. "Excuse me," he muttered. "Can I…?"

"Go for it," John said absently, waving his hand down the hall in the direction of the bedroom. He picked up the report again just as Lestrade shut the bedroom door and answered his phone. The electric kettle reached boiling point and clicked over, and Sherlock got out of his seat and started retrieving cups and spoons for all three of them. But neither of them said a word until Sherlock had brought the coffee back to the table, and Lestrade returned from the bedroom.

"Right," Lestrade said, plunking his phone down. "That was Donovan: they've identified her. Seems she had plenty of friends in the area, but she was on the game, like we thought, and used so many aliases it was hard to figure her out. Her real name was Martha Tabram. Thirty-nine. Two sons in their teens. Separated from her husband."

Sherlock smirked and took a sip of his coffee.

"Yeah, smart-arse, I wasn't actually doubting your word on that one," Lestrade said as John got up and put bread in the toaster. "She'd been living with another guy, Henry Turner, for the past twelve years, and more often than not used his name. But guess what?"

"They recently split up," Sherlock said. "Turner's not your man either, Lestrade. It only explains why she was turning tricks after a long period of relatively domestic bliss."

"Well, I've got Donovan looking at that angle, anyway," Lestrade said defensively. Donovan had extensive training in domestic violence issues, and at the slightest hint of one, he was more than happy to let her do her own digging. "Anyway. The post-mortem is booked in for seven this morning. I said you'd go, John."

"I can't," John said. "You know I can't; I've got Charlie."

"You need to get out of the house and go somewhere without Charlie. Somewhere that's not the hospital, anyway."

"I'm assuming her post-mortem is taking place in a hospital, Greg."

"You knew what I meant. Honestly, go. I'd like your medical opinion. And Sherlock will babysit for you, won't you, Sherlock?"

Sherlock gave him a reproachful look.

"Yeah, you're not doing a good job of selling this," John muttered, though this was his way of agreeing to attend Tabram's post-mortem. "So what's all this stuff about Emma Smith got to do with Martha Tabram? They seem like very different crimes to me, even if you're counting the… blunt object."

"Agree," Lestrade said. "I was more or less trying to rule out a serial offender; these were both pretty brutal crimes, even for a rough area. But that's the other thing Donovan just told me. Martha Tabram's last known address was 19 George Street, Spitalfields."

"So?"

"Emma Smith's last known address was 18 George Street. What's the odds?"

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Anecdote time: A friend of a friend of mine actually met Rupert Graves in a Tesco supermarket, and the chest-caressing incident really happened. She was mortified. Fortunately, Graves and his wife thought it was hilarious._

 _ **A/N 2:** This, like most of the others in the series, is an updating of a real case: that of Jack the Ripper, who murdered between five and ten women in the East End of London in the summer and autumn of 1888. As per the BBC series, this fic is set in the present day. In part, 'Letters from Hell' is my attempt to put forward a sensible theory on who might have been responsible for the real Jack the Ripper killings. (Being a canon continuation of The Reichenbach Fall, comments in The Empty Hearse about Jack the Ripper don't exist in this universe.) _

_A word on the content of this fic: The Jack the Ripper murders were gruesome sex crimes. I won't be writing anything depicting a sexual assault or mutilation taking place in "real time", and I've got no interest in being sensational or overly graphic. However, some of the material, mainly crime scene and postmortem descriptions of the injuries inflicted on the victims after death, may be confronting._

 _I've tried, in the interest of playing fair with my solution, to use as many real details of the historical case as possible, including direct quotes from witness statements, post-mortem reports, coroner's findings and the infamous letters 'from hell' that were sent to various news outlets and purported to be from the killer. These are all in the public domain due to their age and the fact that they are real statements, not works of fiction from other writers._

 _Updating characters and locations so that they both fit into the 21st century and are accurate to their historical roots has been tough. The original murders took place from August to November, but because of my overall narrative I've decided to move them much earlier in the year and closer together. I've had to bend the present-day geography of the East End slightly, since most of the locations of the original murders and other important addresses no longer exist (a lot of the East End slum blocks were torn down between the wars, and much of what remained was destroyed in the Blitz of 1940.) The ethnic and political population of the East End in this fic fits closer to 1888 demographics than 2017 demographics, since they played an important part in the original crimes. Poverty levels are closer to 1888 levels than 2017 levels. The high number of sex workers and extremely poor people in the East End, too, reflects more on 1888 than 2017. And in a spectacular act of handwaving, I've decided to significantly downplay the fact that modern London has a ridiculous amount of CCTV cameras on public streets. If this had been the case in 1888, the identity of Jack the Ripper would no longer be a mystery._

 _Most of all, I hope what comes across is that the victims of Jack the Ripper were human. They had parents and husbands and children; they were people's friends and lovers and workmates. They were loved. They died before their time, and at the violent hands of a psychopath. And although the people who could remember them in life are all long dead, these victims deserve to be commemorated._

 _Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell this story, and for reading it._


	2. The Missing Witness

Arriving in the hospital mortuary shortly before seven, John was somewhat relieved to find Sharon Knowles presiding over Martha Tabram's post-mortem examination. Sharon was a long-time colleague of Molly's, a few years her senior, and the two had had what passed for a friendship so far back as John's memory went. On seeing John come into the little viewing room annexed onto the mortuary, she took off her gloves and hairnet and went out to him.

"Hi," she said, closing the viewing-room door behind her. They were alone for the time being, though John knew he'd eventually be joined by at least one member of the Metropolitan Police and probably half a dozen medical students. "How's Molly?"

John hesitated. "Not great," he eventually said. After all, if there was anyone who wasn't asking out of idle curiosity, it was Sharon. "Out of intensive care last Wednesday, but we're still having an uphill battle."

He thought, but did not say, that the uphill battle was mostly with the hospital system, not Molly's actual state of health. It had been obvious from the second she had been transferred out of the intensive care unit that they wanted to release her as soon as possible, even if they had to play fast and loose with the truth of her healing process to do it.

"And you? You look tired."

"I'm bloody exhausted, Sharon," he said, before he really meant to.

"I'm not surprised," she said. "Between having Molly and the twins in hospital, and a little one, not even two years old, who probably has no idea where Mum has gone."

 _Meant kindly,_ John had to remind himself. But whenever anyone mentioned Charlie's age, he immediately took it as a slight against his and Molly's family planning. What kind of parents _deliberately_ had children so close together like that?

"Have you got, you know, people helping you?" Sharon went on.

"Yeah," he said automatically, wondering if Sherlock and Harry's 'help' strictly counted. Other than that, and whatever Greg and Mel could do around their full-time work schedules, 'helpers' were rather thin on the ground.

"Sure you do," Sharon said. "Your face just drips with honesty. You've got private health insurance, right?"

"Of course."

"Check your policy. It might cover home care. My sister had surgery last year, and I swear, they could barely wait for the anaesthetic to wear off before they kicked her out of the hospital. She's got four boys, and her husband got someone in from one of those agencies."

John frowned. "To look after the kids?"

"No, I think it was more like a nurse's aide, rather than a babysitter. I'm not sure exactly what this woman's job was—household tasks Jacquie couldn't manage, laundry and cooking and making beds and all that. Anyway, Alan said it was a godsend while he was trying to juggle everything, so you might want to look into it for when Molly comes home."

"Thanks," John said. "I'll ask her what she thinks when I see her later."

"Once I've got this woman laid out properly I'll text Molly the really interesting bits," Sharon said, returning her attention to the corpse at hand. "It might at least give her something interesting to read. Bloody hell, whoever it was had a good go at her, didn't they?" She glanced through the glass into the mortuary; a young man in scrubs had just shuffled in. "Right-o. I've got a student with me today… I should get back to him before he drops something."

* * *

At ten to nine, just when Sherlock was contemplating retrieving his laboratory kit from the flat above, his phone rang. He swiped it off the countertop and answered before checking the caller ID, expecting John.

"Hey, it's me."

Lestrade. Judging from the background static, he was using hands-free in the car.

"Just wanted to know how you were getting on," he continued.

"I'm babysitting," Sherlock said crossly, strongly suspecting that he had Donovan in the passenger seat listening in. But there was no giveaway laughter on the line.

"Yeah, that's what I wanted to know how you were getting on with."

"She's asleep." Sherlock went to the living-room screen door and slid it open slightly. Charlie was lying on the floor in the confines of her playpen, arms flung over her head, fast asleep. Sherlock felt almost affronted. If he was going to be stuck at Baker Street with John's eldest daughter, the very least she might do is attempt to be interesting. "News?"

"Loads… but not where I thought it might be. Both 18 and 19 George Street are lodging houses. That Emma Smith and Martha Tabram lived next door to each other might be a coincidence, but I'm still trying to work out if there's a connection."

"Balance of probabilities says there isn't. And…?"

"There was a uniformed officer on his beat in Wentworth Street most of last night, and his route took him past the door of George Yard Buildings. He says that coming up to two a.m., he stopped to talk to a young man who was loitering. When asked, the guy said he was waiting for a mate who'd gone with a girl."

"How is that interesting?"

"Because of what he said next. The constable, Tom Barrett, works out of Bishopsgate Police Station, so he tries to get to know the locals. He wanted to see what this guy was up to, so they had a chat. The guy told him he was a Grenadier Guard."

"Almost certainly a lie," Sherlock said. "A real Grenadier Guard would be unlikely to volunteer to a police officer that he was prowling around a red light district at two o'clock in the morning."

"I've heard of stranger," Lestrade said. "Ted Bundy picked up victims using his own car, and others overheard him giving them his real name. Murderers can be idiots. Anyway, Barrett's given us a full description. Caucasian, early to mid twenties, five foot nine or five foot ten, fair complexion, dark hair, slight to medium build. I'm taking Barrett to the Tower this morning to see if he can identify him from any of their lot."

"He won't," Sherlock said.

"Well, if he won't, there's somebody else who might. Another woman who apparently was with Martha from ten last night till around midnight, when they picked up a pair of young men and headed up Angel Alley with them. Another woman overheard part of the proposition, if you want to call it that, and the guys said they were Grenadier Guards. Corporal and Private."

"That's suspiciously convenient," Sherlock muttered.

"Only problem is," Lestrade said, ignoring him, "none of the women I spoke to this morning have a clue who Martha's friend is. They know her as 'Pearly Poll'. Considering half of them also knew Martha as 'Emma', I'm going to go out on a limb and say our mystery woman's name isn't Pearly or Poll."

"Emma?"

"Yeah, tried that angle. I don't think anyone was confusing Emma Smith with Martha Tabram, but I'm open to finding out otherwise." Lestrade paused. "This Pearly Poll…"

"Please, that's getting annoying."

"Trips right off the tongue."

"She sounds like a pirate."

"I wouldn't be surprised. So she's not one of your homeless lot?"

"No," Sherlock said. "But I bet I can find her faster than you can."

"While you're stuck at home with a sleeping baby?" Lestrade chuckled. "Okay. If you can do it, I owe you a drink. The game is on, and all that."

* * *

 _Can I take Charlie to interview a witness? -S_

 _\- Today 9:04am_

 _ **~o0o~**_

 _No_

 _\- Today 9:04am_

 _ **~o0o~**_

 _Can I invite a witness to your flat to be interviewed? - S_

 _\- Today 9:05am_

 _ **~o0o~**_

 _What witness?_

 _\- Today 9:06am_

 _ **~o0o~**_

 _Pearly Poll. Martha Tabram's colleague. - S_

 _\- Today 9:07am_

 _ **~o0o~**_

 _Are you even asking if I want a woman named Pearly Poll in my flat? On my way home now_

 _\- Today 9:07am_

* * *

It was half-past nine, and Sherlock was busily orchestrating a Homeless Network search party from his phone, when John finally returned to 221a.

"Thirty-nine stab wounds," he said, putting a plastic bag containing bread and milk onto the kitchen table. "Thinking about it, that'd make a good name for a blog post: _The Thirty-Nine Stab Wounds_."

"Yes, can you _not_ fantasise about the solution before the crime has been solved?"

John peeped into the living room, where Charlie was playing with a pile of plastic blocks. "Okay," he said, digging out the milk to put it in the fridge. "Sharon Knowles did the autopsy, and she gave a time of death between half-past two and quarter to three this morning. Could be off by fifteen minutes on either side, but she's pretty sure that Martha was alive at two a.m and dead at three."

"Which fits in with witness testimony," Sherlock said. "I've been onto Lestrade and to Dyer, who's been heading up interviewing all of the occupants of George Yard Buildings. At ten minutes to two, an Elizabeth Mahoney came up the stairs and saw nothing. At half-past three, a George Crow saw a woman lying on the landing. He assumed she was drunk and ignored her. Tell me more about the injuries."

"The focus of the attack was her breasts, abdomen and groin. She had five wounds to her left lung, two to her right lung, one in her heart, five in her liver, two in her spleen and at least six to her stomach. Done with a pen-knife, or something close to it."

"She was stabbed thirty-nine times with a knife roughly the same size as a _pen?"_

"And not even a particularly sharp one, at that, Sharon said. You'd have to put a hell of a lot of energy into stabbing someone to death with a weapon like that. Anyway, stabbed thirty- _eight_ times with a knife roughly the same size as a pen. There was one wound on the sternum that Sharon thought couldn't be done with a pen-knife. She's blaming something like a dagger or a bayonet."

"Bayonet?"

"Weird, isn't it?"

"Yes," Sherlock mused, "though perhaps not in the way you're thinking. For the earlier part of last evening, Martha was with another prostitute who goes by the street name of Pearly Poll. Witnesses said they went their separate ways with two Grenadier guards, a corporal and a private. Very strange."

"What, that a couple of soldiers would pick up… professionals…?"

"No," Sherlock said scathingly. "If I needed any research into what men in the armed forces are like when it comes to casual sex, I'd ask your old comrades for anecdotes."

"Thanks."

"Frankly, the most important detail here seems to be why our mystery Grenadier is so desperate to be caught. He volunteered his profession to an officer in uniform and to the woman he paid for sex. Then he apparently used a military weapon to kill her. Am I to expect him to announce his name, address and phone number in flashing lights over the White Tower?"

"It'd be helpful." John went into the living room and returned with Charlie, flush-cheeked after her nap and clinging to him like a baby monkey. "How did you go, Charlie?" he asked her.

"All the important things accounted for," Sherlock said. "Clean and fed. Uninjured."

"I'm going to deduce that she's been asleep."

"For about half an hour."

"Good. Well, um, thanks for looking after her, Sherlock. I'm going to get her sorted and take her in to see Molly and Sophie and Louise." Still bearing childhood memories of the horrors of being referred to collectively, John always made a point of using his daughters' names. "Did you want to come in with us?"

"Oh," he said, looking away. "I'd love to, but, you know, the case. I'm a little busy with it right now."

"You just don't like hospitals," John pointed out. "Unless you're in the mortuary of one."

"Nobody likes hospitals," Sherlock said, which wasn't quite the denial he'd meant it to be.

* * *

John and Charlie arrived at the hospital just over forty minutes later. As he stepped out of the lift, Charlie in his arms, he could see Molly up and on her feet in the corridor. She was gripping the hall grab-rail with both hands, and even at a distance he could see her face was white. A middle-aged nurse with oversized glasses stood beside her, but made no attempt that John could see to help.

"What the hell…?" he demanded, hurrying over. Awkwardly juggling Charlie in one arm, he put the other around Molly's back to support her, then turned to the nurse. "I thought I said you weren't to try this while I wasn't here," he snapped.

She gave him an ingratiating smile, revealing oversized and overly white teeth. "Your wife is a big girl now, Mr. Watson," she said cheerily. "She can try things for herself, you know."

"It's _Doctor_ Watson, actually," John said, correcting someone on his official title for the first time in years. "Molly, what do you need?"

"I… need to sit down now," she said faintly.

"Get her a chair."

"Mrs. Watson," the nurse coaxed her, completely ignoring John. "You've got this far without help, all this way, so I don't want to see you give up just because your husband's here. You need to use your willpower now. You're—"

Molly gave a sharp cry, as if she'd been stabbed. "I need to sit down now!"

"Get her a _bloody chair!"_ John set Charlie down on the floor and slipped both hands under Molly's arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the nurse moving toward the nurses station, though he couldn't tell how fast. "Okay," he muttered. "Just hold on, we're getting a chair…"

"John," she got out. "Charlie's…"

John turned his head just in time to see Charlie merrily scamper off down the hallway.

"Oh, God," he exclaimed. "Someone, please—"

At the last second, John saw a young student nurse dart off after Charlie and scoop her up just before she could reach the vending machine at the corner. She hoisted her up with a practiced hand—clearly someone's sister, babysitter, even mother, though she couldn't have been older than twenty. As she marched back over with her, Charlie, affronted that her expedition had been thus thwarted, burst into tears.

"Jesus, I'm sorry," John blurted out. "I didn't realise she'd-"

"They're fast," the nurse said, smiling. "It happens. Here, shall we swap...?"

By this time the first nurse, she of the oversized glasses and blinding white veneers, had returned with a wheelchair for Molly. It was only when John had helped her down into it that he saw that Molly, too, was now in tears.

"Hey," he said. He took Charlie off the younger nurse with one hand and fumbled in his pocket for a tissue with the other. Finding none, he swiped the tears off her cheeks with one thumb. "Hey, it's fine. Had me worried for a second there, but we're all still here…"

Molly held her hands out for Charlie. Despite knowing exactly the kind of damage the little girl could do if she used her mother as a jungle gym, or even came in for an over-enthusiastic cuddle, John set her down gingerly on Molly's knees. Sometimes it was better to risk it and let people cry together.

"Hey, darling," Molly said, still struggling with her tears. John started to wonder if it was simple stress or pain, or both. "Are you being good for Daddy?"

"The best," John said, and it wasn't quite a lie. "Come on, let's go see if we can get her to understand which babies are hers. Ready?"

Molly nodded, swiping at her face again. John took the wheelchair by its handles and deftly kicked off the brakes. "Oh," he said, handing his phone over Molly's shoulder. "Emails. First one. Sharon's got something good she says you might want to look at."

"Pathology report?" She sounded eager.

"Even better. Post-mortem… a murder victim they found last night. I was there, but I can't promise I understood much; that's your thing."

* * *

The twins were much the same as they'd been since the day they were born, though John thought they'd visibly grown. Their progress reports promised that Sophie had gained three ounces and Louise had gained two, and that Sophie was off her ventilator for short periods to help strengthen her lungs. Louise's were still very fragile. On Molly brushing one fingertip over the palm of her hand, she gripped onto it and started up a breathless little squeak of rage that hurt John's heart.

"Just heading out for a second, Lolly," he said, leaning over to kiss her hair and lifting Charlie carefully out of her lap. "I'll take this one with me."

"Are you okay?"

 _No, I'm not okay. My daughter can't breathe._

"Fine," he said. "I'll be back. I may or may not bring chocolate with me."

Leaving Molly by the incubator, he took Charlie back to the nurses station up the hall. The nurse with the oversized glasses stood hovering over a computer. "Hi," he said. "We need to talk. Somewhere private—or here will do, if you're not bothered."

She gave him a thin-lipped smile. "How can I help?"

"You can help by _not ever_ doing that with my wife again."

"I was operating within hospital protocol," she snipped, giving her attention back to the computer screen. "It's very important that she's up and moving as soon as possible. Walking promotes the flow of oxygen—"

"Yeah, I'm aware of that; I'm a bloody doctor. What's _very important_ is that you properly assess whether she's capable of standing unassisted, and if she's not, policy dictates that you have two assistants and a wheelchair standing by. You didn't."

For a second, John was afraid that if she rolled her eyes at him he was going to actually slap her. "Our resources don't allow us to have two assistants standing by at all times, Dr. Watson. We're short-staffed."

"Is that any reason to put a patient at risk?" he demanded. "That's why I asked that I _be there with her_ before you tried to make her walk on her own. It's exactly why. You _knew_ I was visiting at ten. What, you couldn't possibly wait fifteen more minutes for me to get here?"

"I know you're going to have trouble understanding this," she said, giving him an icy glance, "but you don't work here, and you're not your wife's keeper. If anything, your coddling her like a child every time you're in here is chipping away at her confidence—"

"Her confidence? What, you think she's going to recover from major surgery just by being _confident?_ Don't be bloody ridiculous. She needs proper pain management and safe mobility practice, not a pep talk about using her willpower when you don't even have a chair nearby as a backup. You knew I was coming. You needed to wait."

"There isn't enough staff for us to wait when-"

"Oh, come on. I'm sure you could have found something else to do for fifteen minutes when you really are understaffed. If I hadn't been here, and she'd said she needed to sit down, would you have ignored her, or gone to get a wheelchair and left her unattended?"

"If you hadn't been here, she would have—"

"Fallen. Either way, she would have fallen. Given that she's still riddled with stitches from major surgery, a fall could cause internal bleeding and set her progress back _weeks_. She's not even close to read to be released, and you've been telling me since Thursday she's got ten days, tops, before you're evicting her."

"You know that isn't up for us as nurses to decide."

"No, it's not. But for God's sake, don't push her like this. She nearly died. She needs time to recover, and by 'time', I don't mean a week."

"Daddy," Charlie whined softly.

"In a second, Charlie," he said, swiping one hand over her soft blonde curls. "If you want to talk more, you can find me in the NICU," he said. "But make it worth both our whiles, or don't bother. I've got enough to deal with right now without this, thanks."

Without waiting for her response, he turned and walked away, careful to slow it down to a stroll. Behind him, somewhere in the recesses of the adjoining ward, he heard a lone round of applause.


	3. I Reject Him Utterly

"Nothing to worry about," Lestrade said cheerfully, checking over his shoulder and changing lanes. In the passenger seat of the Metropolitan-issue Audi, young PC Tom Barrett of Bishopsgate Police Station seemed apprehensive. "Course, you'll have to face them in person. I need to see their reaction to you."

Lestrade did not say it aloud, but he also needed to see Barrett's reaction to the soldiers. It just wasn't _done_ to imply that a member of the police could ever be a shoddy witness, but it wasn't out of the question. Everyone made mistakes, and the human brain was subject to some spectacular sinkholes.

"How much do they know about the murder?" Barrett asked him. He was a clean-cut, sandy-haired young man with brown eyes as alert as a labrador's, and a certain gentleness around his mouth.

"Not much. It's hit the morning newspapers and all the local news websites. Nothing we could do to avoid that, and I didn't want to give the impression we were trying to hush anything up, anyway. I don't think there'll be much fuss. The papers will struggle with reporting the human angle."

Of course, Lestrade thought, the newspapers could try using 'Wife and mother-of-two found murdered' as a headline; that was as accurate as 'prostitute found murdered'. But Martha Tabram was not the kind of wife and mother the middle-class public empathised with, which was part of the reason such murders often went unsolved. Nobody wanted to help, because nobody particularly cared.

"But we've told them we're investigating a street brawl," he went on. "I heard there were a few good ones in Wentworth Street last night."

"And every night," Barrett agreed. "At least, every Saturday night I've ever worked."

"So they'll probably not be too suspicious if we tell them we're looking into an incident where a bloke got king-hit in front of the Seven Dials…" Lestrade trailed off as his mobile phone started to ring. He slapped at the hands-free screen to open the call.

"Lestrade," he said, feeling slightly self-conscious. There were good reasons for detectives to answer the phone using their surname: the caller was often a detective or technician they'd never met before, and in an emergency, detectives had to be prepared to pick up each other's phones when they rang. Still, it suddenly seemed such a _wanky thing to do,_ as if he was trying to show off to the poor inner-city bobby how the Big Shots at the Met did things.

"Oh, hello." The caller was an unknown woman; or at least, Lestrade assumed it was a woman. Judging from her voice, she was either Kathleen Turner bunging on an East End accent, or she smoked about fifty cigarettes a day. "Detective Inspector Lestrade, is it?"

"Yeah, 'sright," he said, trying to sound cheerful while wondering who to strangle for giving a civilian his phone number. "How can I help?"

"I'm Mary Ann Connelly."

He glanced at Tom Barrett in silent questioning, then mouthed _Mary Ann Connelly?_ to him. Barrett shook his head. No idea.

Realising the confusion, the woman on the line sighed. "I go by Pearly Poll when I'm working," she explained. "Sherlock Holmes got in touch, said you wanted to talk to me."

"He was right," Lestrade said, going for 'unperturbed, because Sherlock Holmes works for me.' "There's a lot I might need your help with. I suppose you've heard the bad news."

"About Emma?"

He blinked. Oh, yes. Emma. He and Barrett had just found out that more often than not, Martha Tabram went by the name of Emma Turner when she was working the streets. Given the difference in surnames and the fact that Tabram was nearly ten years younger than Emma Smith and weighed a good forty pounds more, that had all but confirmed that whoever had killed Emma Smith hadn't confused her with Martha Tabram, or vice-versa.

"Yeah," he said. "About Emma—or Martha, her real name was. I heard you were friends. I'm sorry."

"So am I. We had our moments, but she was a good old thing, really."

"So I've been hearing." And Lestrade had. So far, everything that Dyer and Donovan and the other members of his team had dredged up said the same thing: Martha was a good old thing whose only vice seemed to be drinking. She was rarely sober, but even half-drunk she was still warm and generous and funny. She and Henry Turner had done a midnight flit from their previous address at Star Place, in Commercial Road, six weeks before she died. A couple of weeks after leaving, Martha had gone there without Turner, who was long gone, and returned the key and a week of rent, which was probably all she could afford. There was nobody in her life, including her two exes, who had any reason to want her dead.

"I hear you're investigating them soldiers we went with," Pearly Poll said.

"In a way," he said, guarded. "Do you think you'd know them if you saw them again?"

"Oh, without a doubt. It was only last night, and I wasn't that sozzled." She laughed.

Lestrade looked at Barrett again. "Do you have a way of getting to the Tower of London this morning?" he asked her. "If you're desperate, get in a cab and we'll pay it when you arrive..."

* * *

John at least had the presence of mind to retrieve a Bounty bar from the vending machine on his way back into the NICU; he'd promised it, and Molly had a weakness for coconut. "Here you go," he said, handing it over the back of the wheelchair to her. "Might be an improvement on the usual hospital food, anyway."

Molly took it, but barely glanced at it. "I know you didn't go just to get chocolate," she said without smiling. "I'm not stupid, John."

He let out a breath. Looking back, the past ten minutes had been a collection of not-his-finest-moments. "Can I ask you a serious question?" he asked her.

"Of course."

"Do I… I mean, when I come to visit, am I, you know… coddling you?"

"Oh, probably, according to somebody, somewhere," she said wearily. Technically speaking, food wasn't allowed in the NICU, but she absent-mindedly unwrapped the Bounty and bit into the first piece, offering him the second. In turn, he pulled it in half and put a piece in Charlie's mouth, already expectantly open like a baby bird's.

"I know I'm supposed to be an Independent Woman and all that," Molly went on. "But John, I'm tired and everything _hurts_ and I miss you and Charlie and I just want to get out of here and take the twins with me. I just… _can't_ have an argument with the nurses as well. Especially when I see them every day, you know?" Finishing her chocolate, she checked her fingers for smudges, then reached through the aperture in the incubator and ran one finger gently down Sophie's arm. The tiny baby splayed her hand in response to her mother's touch. "Anyway," she said, swallowing. "It's really only that one nurse. I don't even know her name. The other nurses don't like her either; you can tell. But all the other nurses have always been nice to me."

"Say the word," John said, "and I'll get you transferred to another hospital."

She shook her head. "I can't leave the girls," she explained.

"They can come with you."

"And take resources away from babies in another NICU who might need it more, John," she reminded him.

This having not occurred to him, he fell silent.

"Anyway, um," Molly said, handing his phone up to him. "Will you take a message to Greg and Sharon? It's about Martha Tabram."

"Oh," he said, taking the phone. All business, then. "What did you think?"

"You say that nobody heard her scream or anything like that?"

"Not that we know of."

"Sharon describes some faint red marks on her neck that she can't explain away for sure. Ask her if she thinks they might have been done with the thumb and forefinger web of a left hand."

"Oh, wait, you think he strangled her?"

"No, he definitely stabbed her… I mean, stabbing is what killed her. Sharon wouldn't have made a mistake like that. But I think he had her in a choke-hold first. If he took her by surprise she mightn't have had a chance to scream." She paused and glanced up at Charlie, who was pulling idly on John's collar. "Also," she said, risking it, "Sharon says she found no signs of recent sexual activity on Tabram."

"Would she, though?" John asked. "He'd be wearing a condom… er, I assume. I _assume_ that's what you'd do if you were going to be… intimate…" he also glanced at Charlie… "with a complete stranger."

"In that case it'd almost certainly leave traces of spermicide or latex transfer. If Sharon found any, she left it off her notes. I'd double check with that, because, you know, I'd expect…"

She was cut off when the phone in John's hand started to ring, the caller ID proclaiming: Mycroft. He stared at it, then looked up at Molly.

"Maybe answer that," she said, nodding. "It might be important."

She had a point. Mycroft didn't call people for idle chit-chats about what they were doing with their weekend. All the same, the last person John wanted to hear from just then was Mycroft Holmes, even if he _had_ been instrumental in saving the lives of Molly, Sophie and Louise. Taking Charlie with him again, he wandered out into the waiting room before opening the call.

"Mycroft, I'm really not having a good day, can this wait?" he said immediately.

"I'm afraid it can't." Mycroft sounded unamused, grim even; but there was nothing in his tone to indicate an incident on the level of, say, someone having died. "I have a car waiting for you out the front."

"Out the front of _where-?"_

"You're not at Baker Street. I checked. Therefore, you're at the hospital."

John decided not to tell Mycroft he'd spent hours that morning at Martha Tabram's post-mortem. Mycroft was sure to point that this was, in fact, a hospital; and that it was the first time he'd been anywhere other than visiting Molly and the twins in a solid week. "I've got Charlie with me," he said instead. "So if you want to talk, she'll have to come with me. And she can't travel without an infant's booster seat."

"There's one fitted in the back of the car. The driver will assist you if you need it."

If anything, John was now consumed with curiosity as to what an MI6 Mercedes Benz looked like with a kid's car seat installed in the back. "You'll have to wait a bit," he said. "Sophie and Louise are awake for a change, so I'm not cutting things short with them for a cuppa with you. I'll be there when I'm good and ready. Out the front, did you say?"

* * *

Well, this was a turn-up for Lestrade's books.

Mary Ann Connelly, AKA Pearly Poll—prostitute, fifty, and barely sober—had identified the man she'd gone with up Angel Alley last night, as well as the companion who'd gone with Martha Tabram.

And both of the sneaky bastards had signed back into the barracks at midnight and been fast asleep, with half a dozen witnesses, between two and three o'clock that morning.

Meanwhile, PC Tom Barrett—good, clean, middle-class, and of unimpeachable honesty—had failed to recognise anyone in the line-up as the man he'd seen loitering near the crime scene at 2 a.m. Under private questioning, he was adamant that neither of the pair Poll and Martha had picked up was the man who'd told him he was a Grenadier Guard who was waiting for a mate. As Sherlock Holmes had predicted, whoever Barrett had seen had been lying about what he did for a living. Lestrade thought it was a curiously specific claim for a guy to make, especially when 'I'm in the army' would have done, but without Barrett's corroboration, he was on his own in pursuing that one.

"Sorry, old peel," Poll said to Lestrade, once Barrett left to return to his duties and the assembled men had dispersed. Since he had no reason to detain anyone, Lestrade was on his way back to the car, and Poll had decided to follow him. She'd turned out to be exactly as she'd sounded on the phone: a stubby woman with a throaty voice, leathery skin and a mass of none-too-clean hair that still showed streaks of its original auburn among the grey. She reeked of wet laundry left in the machine too long. Her accent wasn't as broad as Lestrade had first expected, but she spoke in a distinct sort of street argot where she apparently just made up words every now and again. Maybe, Lestrade thought, that was at least partly due to her leisure activities. This early in the morning, and there was whiskey on her breath.

"I'll bet I can tell you the obvious, though," she was saying as she trotted along behind him, puffing with asthma.

"What's that?"

"Well, I told you from the first that it couldn't have been more than midnight when I said goodbye to my young man, and Emma—sorry, Martha—she was working roughly the same time. And not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm sure there are fancy women who spend three hours with a client, but I'm not one of them, and Martha wasn't either. Just get in, get out." She chuckled at her own risque joke. "So it's not a surprise that young constable Barrett saw a different man. Our pair would have been back here asleep long before that happened."

"Well," he said, sighing heavily and reaching for the car door. "It was worth a try. Come on, get in. I'll buy you a coffee."

She looked suddenly suspicious. "Why?"

"So you can chew my ear off with anecdotes about what Martha Tabram was like—it might help me work out who killed her. And also, because you're as hung over as hell and I bet you need the caffeine."

* * *

Saying goodbye at the hospital was difficult enough for John and Molly, let alone Charlie, who still didn't understand that she and her mother weren't being separated for life. By the time John arrived at Mycroft's office she was still crying; not the screams of rage she sometimes came out with when she didn't get her own way, but heartbroken little sobs that made him feel like the worst father in the world. Nor did she stop when he knocked on Mycroft's door and came in when invited to. Mycroft was sitting at his desk, all business, apparently unperturbed. As he usually did when entering Mycroft's office, John reflected that it looked like a villain's lair. Or a comfortable gaol cell.

"Sorry," he said over Charlie's crying. "It's just, y'know, she doesn't like being separated from her mother."

"Ah, yes." Mycroft strove nobly to project his voice without the indignity of actually raising it. "I expect she's been at the hospital a lot over the past week. How is everyone?"

"Not dying. I don't really want to talk about it with you."

"Just so." Mycroft went to his desk and started rummaging around one of the middle drawers, eventually locating and producing the last thing John had expected: a fun-sized Mars bar. He unwrapped it and handed to Charlie, who stopped crying immediately.

Bloody hell. Despite having already had a cardiac episode or three, Mycroft Holmes was still, it seemed, a sugar addict. And Charlotte Watson was going to end up one too, if her collection of unofficial uncles didn't stop giving her chocolate, cake or biscuits to appease her.

And John was too tired to be bothered having this argument with Mycroft, or anyone else, right now. He sat down without being asked, silently encouraging Charlie to create as much mess as possible. "So what's so bloody important that you had to drag me here?" he asked.

"This." Mycroft passed a stack of papers across the table.

John raised an eyebrow, but did not touch them. "What's that?"

"Notes from Seamus Ritchie, MD. Sherlock's drugs counsellor. Have a look."

"No." John slid one arm around Charlie and pulled her closer to him. "I told him before that I wouldn't, Mycroft, even if he asked me to. If he wants me to know this stuff, he can come and _tell_ me. I'm not sneaking around looking at his therapist's notes."

"Then I'll summarise them. He's been participating in free association therapy. I trust you're familiar..?"

"Is that the thing where they say a word, and you say the first word that comes to mind? Charlie, darling, don't put chocolate on the upholstery, please..."

 _Did he just hear me call Charlie d_ — _yeah, you know what, I don't even care._

"Yes." Mycroft said. "He's been indulging more in the written form during sessions, though. The copies are there in front of you. Of particular note is the repetition of the name 'Christabel' and another phrase: 'I reject him utterly.'"

"Him?"

"Not a difficult leap to make, surely."

"Your dad." John picked up the papers, though he was determined not to read them. "So it's pretty obvious Sherlock _doesn_ ' _t_ reject him utterly. If he did, he wouldn't be writing about him in therapy." This was something John could at least claim from experience. Weeks and months of therapy sessions post-Afghanistan, whether it had been before he'd met Sherlock or after he'd thought he'd committed suicide. And not once, he thought, would he ever have voluntarily come out with a mention of his father during a session. Ella had asked him about his parents exactly once: _Mum died of breast cancer when I was seventeen. I wasn't traumatised. Dad and I don't talk._ And that had been the end of that. John had barely spared his father a thought from the day he'd left home until the phone call from Harry to tell him he'd died.

"So," Mycroft said heavily, "what are we going to do about this?"

John looked questioningly at him. "… Um… nothing…?"

"I know you're not in the habit of doing nothing when Sherlock needs your help, John."

"Yeah, I'm not convinced he needs my help. If he wants to chat about this with you or Christabel, he knows where to find both of you. He's _your_ father, after all. What's it got to do with me?"

Mycroft rolled his eyes and sighed. "I suspect it's been a very long day for us both," he said snippily, "so please don't be obtuse. I'm asking you to agree to oversee Sherlock's emotional health during what might be a… difficult time, shall we say. It is a role I am not equipped for."

"You want me to offer him a shoulder to cry on." _I sometimes feel like there's a queue for that._ "After seeing his father. How's this meeting going to happen, anyway? Have you even thought that far? Asked your dad how _he_ feels about meeting up? For all you know, he's not keen either."

Mycroft ignored this. "It seems clear to me that Sherlock's mental state would improve if we removed all doubt and speculation—"

"—And tried to force a meeting. You know Christabel already tried that? It didn't end well. She ended up over here, you _both_ kicked her out of Baker Street, and to be honest, I'm not sure Sherlock's talking to her now."

"I'm assuming not, from the alarming amount of times he returns to her name in his writing sessions." Mycroft offered John the papers again. Again, John ignored them.

"What I want," Mycroft continued, "and what I think Sherlock needs, is an… elucidation, from our father's own mouth, of the status of their relationship."

"You mean, you want to hear your father tell Sherlock to piss off in person."

"Not necessarily, and I doubt our father would put it so crudely. He may wish to reconcile."

"Yeah, an iceberg might fall through this ceiling any second, too, but don't hold your breath."

Hearing himself, John felt a flash of heat course through his veins. _An iceberg might fall through this ceiling…_ An expression he'd heard a thousand times throughout his childhood, but it had never come out of his own mouth before.

"Your dad's had thirty-five years to reconcile," he went on. "And he hasn't. So why the hell would he do it now?"

"Perhaps," Mycroft mused, "if he was given to understand how brilliant his son is..."

"Don't play that game." John got up, pleased to see that Charlie had wiped chocolate all over the arm of the chair. "You'll lose. Some people are like that, Mycroft. Don't try to sell a man's son to him by telling him he's brilliant… as if he'd be worth ignoring if he wasn't."

"I see I've touched a nerve."

"Nope." John retrieved Charlie's backpack from where he'd left to one side of the doorway. "But if you really want my opinion, the last thing Sherlock needs in his life now is a father who walked out on him when he was four. Therapy's not about changing your circumstances. It's about changing the way you _think_ about your circumstances. Sherlock needs to accept he's never going to get the old man's approval, and move on with his life."

"… But…?"

"But of _course_ I'm going to put an oar in for him if you decide to go through with it. I've got no idea why you keep asking. Will you do something for me, though?"

"What?"

"Don't say or do anything without the permission of his drugs counsellor. And that includes even mentioning your father or Christabel to him. He could fall off the wagon altogether, and then we'll be dealing with him in hospital with an overdose."

Mycroft made a vague movement of agreement. "On the subject of hospitals," he ventured, "it probably won't surprise you to learn that I'm rarely home. When I am, I'm afraid I'm not of a…" he grimaced… " _domestic_ sort of turn. I hire a woman to come in and do a bit of work: cleaning, laundry, and so on. She's employed by an agency that I'd be happy to recommend."

John blinked. "What brought that on?" _Oh, God, are Charlie's clothes on inside out or something?_

"You smell of bleach," Mycroft replied.

"Yeah, I've just been at a hospital."

"No, this isn't hospital-grade bleach, which, of course, you'd never use around a young child anyhow. Your hands are also rather a giveaway." Mycroft glanced at them, and John drew his free hand into his sleeve, abashed. "Of course, you clean when you're in distress. Time to stop, Dr. Watson."

"Yeah, you've _already_ presided over my finest moment by handing me a cheque for ten thousand pounds," John snapped at him. "Time to stop, Mycroft."

"I wasn't proposing to hand you a cheque." Mycroft sounded vaguely offended. "In any case, I don't need to. Molly's health insurance policy covers both home nursing care and assisted living, or what you might refer to as a housekeeper or cleaner."

"How did you—"

"I checked."

John quickly decided he couldn't be bothered trying to work out how Mycroft had 'checked' an insurance policy that wasn't his. As he exited the lift and took Charlie out into the grey January day, with its gusts of wind and the smell of the Thames in the air, he realised the only mystery wasn't how Mycroft had checked the policy, but how he'd changed it. It hadn't covered home care when John himself had consulted it that morning.


	4. The Council of War

Another thing that Sharon Knowles had noted about Martha Tabram was that, despite being overweight, she'd been suffering from malnutrition at the time of her death. In light of this, Lestrade decided to treat Pearly Poll to a full English breakfast. It seemed a good call; she accepted the offer and started wolfing it down before the cafeteria waitress could even leave their table.

"It doesn't bother you, then?" she asked him through a mouthful of bacon.

"Does what bother me?"

"That here's you, a police detective, sitting right in public with a person like me."

He had to hand it to her—at least she was self aware.

"People will think you're out cheating on your wife," she went on, looking at the new wedding band on Lestrade's left hand.

It stung, but only for a moment. "Or that I'm interviewing a witness," he said without smiling. "Which I am."

"I hope your wife understands."

"She interviews witnesses, too."

Technically speaking, Melissa interviewed suspected criminals and psychiatric patients, but since her profession didn't seem relevant, generalities were going to have to do. In any case, he didn't care what random strangers in a Pret-a-Manger thought of him. If Melissa were to walk in—highly unlikely, she was working at Wandsworth for the next couple of weeks—he couldn't imagine her doing anything but laughing at him. _Greg, darling, I thought I was living proof that you could do better than that._

"So tell me," he said, gulping his coffee. "What do _you_ think happened to Martha?"

"Met a wrong'un," Poll said, without any hesitation.

"Client?"

"I suppose you could call them that."

"You sound like this sort of thing happens all the time."

"Well, not murders, obviously," she said. "If they did, I reckon the murder boys, of all people, would hear about it. But you go off with a man you don't know, one who'll only pay for five minutes with someone like me who's seen better days…" she gave a knowing smile... "and, well. They're nasty. Some of them are off their rocker, you know."

"So why do you do it?" he asked, before he could help himself.

"Here's a story, guv," she said, picking at the remains of her toast. "You grow up in a council flat, your mum's a housewife, your dad's only got a job every now and again and he's managed to drink or steal his way out of every single one he's ever had. You go to school—'course; you've got to—but you're not smart and you're not interested. You get a few boyfriends, and you marry one, real young. You have four kids, all in about five years, like you don't know what causes them. You spend twenty years cooking and cleaning and ironing and all that. And then hubby runs off with the woman across the road and leaves you flat on your arse. You've got no job, and you're not going to get one, either, 'cause nobody will hire someone who's forty and never had a job before."

"There's benefits, isn't there…?"

She scoffed. "Ever tried to raise a bunch of kids on benefits?"

"No."

"Thought not. So you've got a few choices, really. Find yourself a new man to sponge off and hope to God he's not a wife-basher or a kiddy-diddler. Get in with the drugs crowd. Start stealing. Or sell yourself. A lot of us think that last one's the safest and most honest option, mate."

"Yeah, but that can't apply to all of you. What about Martha? She left her husband, didn't she?"

"I hope that's not what he told you, because it's bollocks. She drank." Poll shrugged. "So he left _her_. Now you ask yourself, Mr. Lestrade, how bad things have to get in a marriage when you kick your missus out, and your youngest one's still a baby? And she _went!"_

For the third time in about as many minutes, Lestrade wondered just whose side she was on. "Poll," he said, pulling a card out of his wallet and handing it across the table to her. "Could you do me a favour…? Well, a couple of favours, actually."

"I could do," she said pleasantly. "Whenever the price is right."

"I'm not propositioning you. When you're working, please, don't do it on your own. Make sure you're with friends. Tell them when you go off with someone, and roughly when you expect to be back."

"… Right-o."

"And look. You've said some of these guys are off their rocker, and I believe you. But if you ever get one who's dangerous—even if he doesn't do anything, one that gives you the creeps, who you're afraid of—get yourself out of there. If you can do it safely, get a good look at him, and call me. Reverse the charges if you have to, but you call me. Will you do that?"

"Why?"

"Because I don't know if anyone told you this yet, but Martha wasn't just stabbed. She was stabbed nearly _forty times_. I know you think you've heard it all, and I'm not making things up to try to scare you off the streets. But if the soldiers you identified had nothing to do with Martha's murder, then there's a Grade A nutter still out there, and we haven't a clue who he is."

* * *

 _Make sure John's eating? He pretends sometimes_

 _\- Today 8:12pm_

~o0o~

Sherlock had been lying stretched out on the sofa at 221b, snoozing like a cat. He reached out one arm to his phone, checking it with one eye open—then sat bolt upright.

It was the first time Molly had texted him since the twins had been born. He could picture her now, sitting in a wheelchair in the little waiting area down the corridor from the NICU; the only area in the maternity section of the hospital where mobile phones weren't expressly banned. It had cost her pain and energy to get there. If Molly was texting him, it was important. What the hell had prompted that?

 _Yes. I will. Rest. - S_

 _\- Today 8:13pm_

~o0o~

 _Will you come to see me tomorrow w/o John? Need to talk_

 _\- Today 8:16pm_

~o0o~

 _Yes. Morning if possible. Rest. - S_

 _Today 8:17pm_

~o0o~

The flat below was almost silent, and the more Sherlock thought about that, the more it bothered him. John was at home. He'd given Charlie her dinner and a bath and put her to bed fifteen minutes before: all that Sherlock had definitely heard. He'd listened to the bath sounds for longer than he'd meant to—Charlie splashing and laughing, John chatting away to her like they were old friends, even though she was still limited to one and two-word sentences. Judging from the time of night and her usual sleep schedule, she was now tucked up asleep in the nursery directly under Sherlock's bedroom. On very still nights, he could sometimes lie in bed and hear her murmuring in her sleep.

There was no chance John had gone to bed as well; not this early. He'd crashed for an hour that afternoon to make up for the morning's adventures, and probably wouldn't turn in properly until ten.

What was he doing? Not talking on the phone or watching television: there was no sound of it. No sound of music or typing, either, and John had never used a set of headphones in his life. Reading? Remotely possible, but John's current concentration span…

And then, in a moment of illumination, Sherlock remembered John's habit of 'switching off'. It was something he'd taken home from Afghanistan, either trained to do it to stave off the onset of a PTSD episode, or inventing it in mental self-defence. When John was overwhelmed or exhausted, he stopped and stared blankly into space. Unless interrupted, he could do it for hours.

Piecing together the concern in Molly's text and John's attentiveness when it came to his daughter, Sherlock knew John's dinner had consisted of random leftovers off Charlie's plate. But if he could be manipulated into arranging a decent meal for one, it would be no trouble to arrange a decent meal for two.

"John," he called down the stairs.

No answer.

"John!"

Half a minute later, he heard John's heavy tread on the stairs and the man himself appeared in the living room doorway. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"Hungry," Sherlock complained, wriggling his bare toes.

"Oh my God, how often does that happen?"

Sherlock decided to ignore this, and instead twitched a nearby newspaper impatiently.

John sighed. "Okay," he said. "I think we've established that you're human, and do need to eat occasionally. What do you want?"

"Something decent."

"You'll have to do better than that. I'm not a mind-reader."

"… Sushi," Sherlock finally said, remembering that this was one of John's favourites, though he'd never seen John turn his nose up at anything deemed fit for human consumption. "There's a place in the Euston Rd…"

John, with another beleaguered sigh, fished into his pocket for his phone. "There's a lot of places in the Euston Rd," he said. "Any ideas what it's called?"

"It has 'sushi' in the name." Sherlock was making this up, but it seemed a logical leap that there _would_ be a sushi restaurant on a busy main thoroughfare in central London, and that it would probably have "sushi" in the business name.

"Right," John muttered, running a Google search in silence while Sherlock listened to the clock ticking and the fire sparking and popping. "Sushi House…?"

"Fine."

"Glad that met with your approval." John dialled the number in. There was no need for him to ask what Sherlock wanted to order. Not after six years. When he'd put in the order and terminated the call, he announced "forty minutes" and dropped into the armchair opposite Sherlock, splaying his hands out on the armrests.

And for a second in time, it was like going back. John slept in the bedroom upstairs, juggling a string of casual dates, and Molly was still Molly Hooper, the timid, lovelorn pathologist at Barts. She and John barely knew each other. They'd never produced the little life dreaming downstairs, or the even littler ones fighting for every breath in a hospital four miles away. Mrs Hudson was downstairs instead, washing her supper dishes; Lestrade was going to wander up the stairs any minute now, perplexed about a case, even more perplexed about his disintegrating first marriage...

"So," John said, breaking the silence. "How's… what's his name…?"

"Seamus."

"Seamus."

"I'm not sure you've grasped the idea of therapy if you think I'm meant to be concerned about how my _therapist_ is," Sherlock said.

"I'm trying to communicate with you without getting all touchy-feely, Sherlock. Cooperate for once, will you?"

But Sherlock was not to be deterred from his point. "Why are you asking? You've never asked before."

"Seriously, we're going to have this argument again?" John bunched his hands into fists for a second. "Because it's now my business what's going on in your head, Sherlock—"

A crash, like a bicycle slamming into a wall of sheet metal, rang out from below them.

"Charlie—"

Sherlock was on his feet in the blink of an eye. John was even faster, though; they ran down the staircase and into 221a, John at a short lead. He headed straight for Charlie's nursery. Sherlock, whose hearing was more keen and whose instincts were elsewhere, threw the back door open and stumbled down the two concrete steps that led to a little courtyard, barely six feet wide and twenty long, where the bins were kept.

All was chaos. Two of the four bins leaned toward each other on one wheel, and another was now a good five feet away from where Sherlock knew John had last put it. The fourth was lying tipped on the concrete, wheels still spinning, lid gaping, various household waste spilling out onto the concrete.

But it was not the bins at all that had Sherlock's attention. He'd just grasped that which lay on the Watson's kitchen windowsill and shoved it into the pocket of his dressing gown when John appeared at the back door.

"The baby-?"

"She's still fast asleep," John said. "Somehow. What the hell was that?"

"A rat," Sherlock said absently. "A big rat. I saw it scrabbling over the back wall as I came out…" He took a breath. "Come on, it's freezing out here, and you need to get back to your phone call. How is Harry, anyhow?"

 _How is Harry?_ The code between them for _We are being watched._

John cottoned on immediately, shutting and bolting the back door behind them without urgency. "What do you want me to do with the curtains?" he asked, glancing at them. They were, as usual, half open.

"Leave them. We don't want anyone watching to think they've rattled us." Sherlock's phone was tucked into the pocket of his dressing gown. As if on cue, it started to pulse, and Sherlock spared the Caller ID an unnecessary glance before picking up.

"Hey, Sherlock." Lestrade sounded agitated. "Work just called telling me your silent security alarm went off. Are you okay?"

Sherlock swallowed. The silent alarm wasn't, technically speaking, his own, though instructions at the local police station were to alert Lestrade whenever it went off. It had been installed for the benefit of Mrs Hudson, after the CIA had broken into her flat and it had finally occurred to Sherlock that his profession put anyone in the building in danger. After Mrs. Hudson's death, he'd simply forgotten to do anything about it until the Watsons had moved in, and then it had been for their benefit. The alarm wouldn't have been tripped unless someone had actively tried to open a door or a window in the Watsons' flat. And if Lestrade knew already, it had tripped at least three minutes before, and perhaps closer to ten.

"We're fine," he said. "But you need to come over. You and Melissa."

"She's at Kim's, and I don't know what time she'll be home. Do you need me to call her?"

Sherlock hissed in dismay. "No," he finally said. "On the balance of things, he's unlikely to recognise Melissa, but he'll definitely know you."

"Who will?"

"Just come over as soon as you can. Don't make it too obvious, but don't try to be furtive."

A short silence as the implications of these instructions came home. "You're being watched," Lestrade said.

"I can't rule out the possibility, though I think whoever came here delivered what he meant to and has since left."

"Delivered what?"

"I'll show you when you get here. Get dressed for dinner—Mycroft will be here as well, if I can get him interested."

* * *

Mycroft was interested - at least, he had nothing better to do that evening than arrive at Baker Street forty minutes later. Lestrade, who lived closer, had arrived in the meantime. So had dinner, though Sherlock noted that John was only really picking at his sashimi. He remembered his promise to visit Molly the following morning. How was it that Molly, who was still under the influence of copious amounts of morphine, who struggled to stay awake even during the morning, and who saw John for only a couple of hours a day, had noticed something Sherlock Holmes _hadn't?_

Mycroft, impeccably dressed in grey pinstripes and his swordstick in hand, took pride of place in the old suede armchair that had once been Mrs. Hudson's. Lestrade went out to the kitchen with John to make coffee for everyone. When they returned, Lestrade dropped onto the sofa beside Sherlock. John, coffee in one hand, remained on his feet in the living room doorway, on edge for the slightest sound or movement from Charlie in the next room.

Once everyone was settled, Sherlock pulled out the little bundle he'd plucked off the windowsill and placed it on the coffee table. It was a single red rose, its stem entwined around a cheap brass signet ring. "I found this on the windowsill of John and Molly's kitchen," he said. "About an hour ago. Whoever did it set off the alarm, Lestrade."

"Who does the ring belong to?" Mycroft asked.

"Martha Tabram," Lestrade said, without taking his eyes off it. "Pearly Poll wears cheap little rings like that. A message from Tabram's killer."

"Yes. He took this from her, either when she was dying or dead. We're dealing with a collector. One who went out of his way to get my attention tonight. Lestrade, do you know of any recent murder cases that involved flowers? Roses?"

"None off the top of my head. I can run a couple of search terms through the system, but unless the case _revolved_ around roses, nothing's likely to come up."

"Winter," John suddenly blurted out.

Sherlock frowned. "Sorry, what?"

"Nothing." John drew into the doorway ever so slightly, like a schoolboy reprimanded for speaking out of turn.

"No, what did you mean?"

It was a few seconds before John continued again. "It's just: real, perfect red roses in the middle of winter," he said. "I bought Molly roses the day before yesterday. They're expensive. Even the ones on display at your wedding were synthetic, Greg. So whoever did this, he's dedicated."

"So this is definitely the killer…?" Lestrade asked.

"If this is Martha Tabram's signet ring—and I see no reason yet to believe it isn't—then yes, this was left by her killer," Sherlock said grimly, steepling his fingers and bringing them to his lips in contemplation.

Lestrade did not look convinced. "Maybe she just… took this off before she went out on the game, left it at her lodging house, and someone nicked it."

"A woman going out on the streets to prostitute herself would choose to wear all the jewelry and finery she owns in an attempt, however forlorn, to make herself look more enticing," Sherlock said, reaching forward to examine the ring again. It was a chunky, awkward thing, worn black in places; the plate was in the shape of a heart, and there was a small chink in one corner where a stone might have fallen out of it. "And she certainly wouldn't have had any concerns about putting things away for safekeeping," he went on. "This is cheap brass, worth no more than a quid or two. The ring she had around her neck—and which the killer completely ignored—was real gold. Am I to believe that a random person, unconnected with the murder of Martha Tabram, 'nicked' her brass signet ring, wrapped it around a red rose and left it outside my home?"

 _"My_ home," John said quietly.

"Yes, all right, technically your home. But since this is clearly a message to me and not you, I wouldn't worry."

"A message to us." John spoke under his breath, and this correction went unremarked.

"A message to you, Sherlock," Lestrade said slowly, "just from someone, what, too lazy or incompetent to climb up to your flat?"

"If you like." Sherlock stirred impatiently. "More importantly, it's a message that it's going to happen again."

"Sure?"

"Certain. He'll make another attempt, and soon. Nobody would go to such lengths to taunt me about the singularly uninteresting murder of a largely irrelevant woman in a high-risk profession unless he was intent on doing it again. One such murder is boring. Ten is-"

"Don't say it," John said.

"I have a question," Mycroft cut in. "From what I can gather, we're discussing the murder of a Whitechapel prostitute several days ago. What on earth am _I_ doing here?"

"As ever, dear brother, you're our security department," Sherlock said. "I need you to make arrangements for this place to be locked down while Charlie's living here. No expense or effort spared."

"In that case," Mycroft said, "the best solution would be for you all to relocate. I'm not required in London in the next fortnight, and the Chelsea Harbour apartment has the highest security—"

"No," Sherlock said. "Baker Street is my home, and I will _not_ be driven from it. It's the best place I can protect John and his family."

"Then send John and his daughter somewhere safer, at least."

"There is nowhere safer than by my side. The further they are from me, the further they are from my help."

"Provided you're at home at the time," Mycroft pointed out, "and not on the other side of London, pursuing a case. Or pursuing other activities."

"I'm clean."

"Furthermore," Mycroft continued, as if he hadn't heard, "if the NHS is still as abysmally underfunded and understaffed as it was the last time I checked, Mrs. Watson will be returning home in the next week, and she'll be in a poor state to defend herself from any potential intruder."

"You practically are the British Government, Mycroft," Sherlock snapped. "Why don't you give the NHS some more money?"

"Sherlock-"

"There will be no intruder, provided we're diligent enough; and that, dear brother, is now your job. Keep in mind that this little present was left on the outer windowsill because the bearer _couldn't get in._ For us all to scatter at the first sign of danger is exactly what the killer wants. Separate. Destabilise. There's nobody on earth I'd give the satisfaction—"

"Hi, I'm right here," John said, raising one hand. "I live in this flat. My baby daughter is asleep in the next room. Is someone going to ask me what _I_ think?"

Sherlock stopped, as if he honestly hadn't considered John's opinion yet. "I can protect you, John," he said. "You. Charlie. Molly. Sophie. Louise."

John considered this for a few seconds. "If someone's hanging around," he said, with a certain tightening of his jaw, "some sick bastard who stabbed an unarmed woman nearly forty times, then I want to be here, ready for him. But Charlie…" He stopped, wincing at the thought that had just crossed his mind. "Yeah, I don't know. We've already had one near miss with her. That's plenty. I thought I could protect her that time. Turns out I couldn't."

"You're not me," Sherlock pointed out.

"Sherlock, I sometimes wonder whether _you're_ you."

Lestrade hid a brief smile in his cup of coffee.

"But," John went on, letting out a breath. "See, here's the thing. Charlie doesn't leave Baker Street without me. I'm not leaving Baker Street without Sherlock."

"Let me guess: Sherlock Holmes leaves Baker Street when hell freezes over," Lestrade finished.

"Exactly," Sherlock said.


	5. 221c

Shortly past ten the following morning, Sherlock arrived at the neonatal transitional care ward and Molly's bedside. Or, more correctly, he arrived at her chairside. She was sitting in a low grey armchair beside her bed, a tiny baby tucked neatly in the crook of each arm. Each was still attached to all sorts of monitors and tubes via the nearby incubator, but Sherlock immediately noticed that Sophie no longer had an oxygen tube.

"Hello." Molly turned her face up to be kissed; and, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Sherlock found himself giving her a peck on the forehead. "Oh, Sherlock, look. The doctor says the girls can stay with me now. They still need the incubator and a few other things, but Sophie's off oxygen unless her vitals drop..." She stopped, pleased but confused, as if aware she'd just been gushing.

"That's… good," Sherlock said with an awkward smile, wondering if he was saying the right thing. It was the first time he'd seen Molly since the twins had been born, except for one two-minute glimpse when she'd still been in intensive care. He hadn't formed a concrete idea of what to expect, but there was something in her lank hair and hollowed-out cheeks that shed all sorts of light on why John was climbing the walls with worry. He cleared his throat.

"I came with John and Charlie," he said apologetically. "I couldn't think of a good reason to come alone. I left them in the giftshop. God knows what John's getting for you now. They'll be along in a minute, so whatever it is you want to say, we don't have much time."

"John's not okay," Molly said.

"No," Sherlock heard himself say. "He's not."

Down the hall, a baby started to scream, and a woman comforted it. Molly winced and shifted in her chair. "Sorry," she said. "It looks good for photos, but it's a little awkward holding both girls at the same time... Will you take Sophie for a minute?"

"Oh." Sherlock looked alarmed. "I don't know… I don't think... Isn't she too…?"

"No, it's fine," she said. "See, she looks different without her oxygen tube, doesn't she? You can just hold her normally, I mean, like you do with bigger newborns. John says she's like a kitten—not as fragile as she looks."

Very reluctantly—and very carefully—Sherlock took the baby. It felt like Molly had given him an empty blanket, and he had a sudden vision of the feeding tube catching on something and being ripped off that made him gasp involuntarily. Molly appeared not to notice, and no such thing happened. Tiny Sophie turned her head toward Sherlock and her dark eyes opened. A little squeak, as if in greeting. Then she was back in dreamland.

Molly smiled again, this time sadly. "Sherlock," she said, "ever since I could understand what happened, the hospital's been throwing emotional health stuff at me. Counselling and all that. Did you know, nobody's ever offered any to John?"

Sherlock did not know this, but wisely decided not to interrupt.

"Even when he comes in with Charlie, looking terrible, or when he loses his temper with the staff and things," she went on. "Nobody's ever asked him if he's all right, or asked me if he's all right. Maybe they all think he's just got a hair-trigger temper or something. But he's upset, Sherlock. Tired and upset."

"Yes." Sherlock had no idea what else to say. Of course John was worried about his wife and younger daughters, and had his hands full solo-parenting his firstborn. But losing his temper with the staff…? Molly's phrasing sounded like it was a set of incidents. A set of incidents John had never mentioned to him.

"And, well, if he's upset I'm not surprised," Molly was saying. "I feel a bit… embarrassed telling you this, actually… um. One of the last things I really remember before I passed out was when we were still in the hotel room, before the Medivac came… Sherlock, he was trying to hold the placenta in place with his fingers."

Sherlock winced. "That must have been… upsetting for you…"

"Yes, it was, but you're talking about _me_ again. I wasn't really conscious by then, and everything hurt, and I didn't understand what was going on. John did. He knew how bad it might be. He must have been terrified."

The idea of John being terrified hadn't really occurred to Sherlock since his experiment in the Baskerville lab; and that had been, after all, a synthetic sort of terror.

"My doctor told him it was an actual miracle both twins weren't stillborn," Molly went on, a tremor running through her voice for the first time. She swallowed. "And nobody's wondered if John might need someone to talk to about what happened?"

"I'm not equipped for a conversation like that," Sherlock said gently. "Will he talk about it with you?"

"No. I tried, once. I don't think he understood what I was trying to say—he thought I was trying to tell him that _I_ wasn't okay." She stirred. "He's not himself. I want him back. So do you."

"Molly, all this I agree with, but we have about two minutes before John arrives. If you have a solid plan on what we're going to do and how we're going to do it, you're going to have to speed it up."

"I was talking with Harry yesterday," she said, the words suddenly tumbling out in a rush. "She agreed to take Charlie for a week, but John will never agree to that. He'll think it's because I don't think he can look after her. Of course he can. He'd give her the food off his plate and the clothes off his back."

"Which is the problem."

"Yes. He needs to be… just John again for a little while. Without me, without the babies." She glanced down at Louise. "Or I'll lose him."

"You will not," Sherlock said immediately, with more heat than he expected. "Molly, I've known John for six years now, and I can absolutely promise you that he would never—"

"I don't mean he'd _leave_ me," she said. "He'd stay, no matter how miserable he was—but if he did that, I'd lose him all the same. He'd end up my nurse. Or my housekeeper."

Sherlock nodded. "But if you think I can convince him to take Charlie to Harry's place—"

"I know. Harry said it was a waste of time trying, too. But she said she'd be happy to move into 221c… just for a week or two, maybe. That way John could feel like he wasn't giving Charlie over to someone else, because she'd still be in the same building, but everyone would have their own flat and keep out of each other's way unless it was needed. But _you_ own the whole building, so you'd need to agree."

"Of course," Sherlock said, although one of the last things he could ever have imagined agreeing to was Harriet Watson moving into 221c Baker Street. "But isn't the downstairs flat… uninhabitable?"

"The electricity and water are connected," Molly said. "Harry said she's not fussed about the damp old carpet and wallpaper and curtains if it's only going to be for a little while."

"Okay," Sherlock said, clearing his throat. John would _not_ be happy about this, but it wouldn't be the first time he'd had to be bullied into his best interests. "I'll… call Harry, then. This morning."

"If she doesn't call you first." Molly smiled again, but there was something unfocused in her gaze, and Sherlock wondered how long she was going to hold up for. Even after ten days, she had trouble staying awake and alert for any length of time. "That woman, Martha Tabram," she said. "You got called out to her crime scene, but it was really early, and John couldn't go."

"I showed him the photographs later."

"You and I both know it's not the same thing," she said. "And so does John. You miss so many of the details if you can't be there in person. This probably isn't a very interesting case for you, but if it's all you and John have right now, maybe you could… find something interesting about it…? It's a case, anyway. It's what John needs."

For a second, Sherlock debated whether to tell Molly that the case was much more important now than a dead prostitute, but this was something John had to tell her. And anyway, time had run out. John, with Charlie by one hand, had just appeared in the doorway. Nothing obvious in his other hand: he'd bought her jewelry, then.

* * *

Shortly after four that afternoon, John woke on the sitting room sofa. For a second he assumed Charlie, in the nursery having a nap of her own, had woken him. But as he reluctantly sat up, he realised the nursery was silent, and the commotion was coming from the front hall.

 _Client?_

And then he heard it: Harry's voice. Loud, brash and unapologetic. Getting up, he staggered over to the internal door and opened it to see Harry come in through the front entry, carrying an unmarked cardboard box so large she could barely see over it.

"Oh, hello," she said. "Out of the way, John, there's a dear." Juggling her box in the palm of one hand, she dipped into the other for a set of keys and started opening the door of 221c.

"What the f—"

"Hypocrite," she said cheerfully. "So much for you being a good Catholic boy. I bet you swear your head off around Charlie when I'm not around, and the first time she says 'fuck', you're going to blame it on me."

John covered his weary face in his hand. "What are you doing here?" he asked, following her into the living room of 221c, where she set down her box.

"Oh, didn't Sherlock tell you?" She pulled down one crumpled sleeve of her bright red coat and looked around the place, as if appraising it. "That was rude of him, but I can't say I'm surprised…"

Without even waiting to hear Harry's version of events, John left her standing by the disused fireplace and went up to 221b, thinking a range of unprintable things about both his sister and best friend. He found Sherlock at his kitchen table, examining a pile of what looked like eighteenth century shipping manifests. He barely looked up as John came in.

"Sherlock, I could be wrong, but it looks an awful lot like my sister is moving into the basement flat."

"Your powers of deduction are coming along tremendously, John." Sherlock stood up and went over to fill the kettle, still without actually looking at him. "Relax. The arrangement's not permanent."

"What the _hell_ is she moving in for?"

"You know perfectly well what the hell she's moving in for, so don't look so slack-jawed. You need some live-in assistance with Charlie, Harriet's a tolerable housekeeper, and this is safer than hiring a random person we don't know. There's an outside _possibility_ that your sister was the one who left the rose and ring on the windowsill, but I doubt it."

"You didn't even—"

"Ask you? Of course not. What was the point of asking you when you were only going to say no?"

"No," John said.

"Like that, yes, but I didn't really need the demonstration."

"No way," John continued. "Look, we're basically staying here under your goodwill, and I know that. And yes, I know the third flat's yours, and you could invite Hannibal Lecter to move into it and it's not my say. But—"

"A week," Sherlock said. "That's all it is. You know I'm not so fond of Harry that I want her for a tenant for her own sake. And don't be ridiculous about the idea of her looking after Charlie so that you can leave the flat occasionally."

"Yeah, there's a reason I'm 'ridiculous' about Harry looking after—"

"Please, at some point you really _are_ going to have to stop describing your sister as an alcoholic."

"There's no such thing as an ex-alcoholic," John said stiffly. "Just alcoholics who are on or off the wagon."

"And Harry's been on the wagon since the day Charlie was born." Sherlock physically turned John around and steered him, protesting, toward the door. "Now," he said blithely. "I imagine Harry has quite a few boxes to bring in, as well as some furniture. Go and help her settle in, and then we'll all have a nice cup of tea."

* * *

John rolled over in bed, barely awake, then reluctantly opened his eyes. In the flat above, something—someone—someone named _Sherlock Holmes—_ was making a noise, somewhere between a thump and a squelch. In his sleepy state, John's first thought was _gunshots_. That had happened before. But these were too dull for gunshots. Either way, those noises were going to keep him awake. But then, a dripping tap or the brush of leaves against the window were keeping him awake this week. It had been that sort of a week.

He got out of bed, casting a glance at the empty space on the mattress beside him before he could help it, and padded across to Charlie's nursery. She was splayed out on the mattress in her bunny jumpsuit, murmuring in her sleep. Well, at least _one_ _of them_ was able to sleep. John left the nursery door ajar and grabbed a dressing gown to go upstairs. As he went through the kitchen, he glanced at the clock display on the microwave. 3:56am.

As John expected, Sherlock hadn't even got into his pyjamas yet. He was standing against the south living-room window, body pressed in close to a full pig's carcass in a bizarre embrace. His left hand circled the pig's throat. At first John thought he was punching it with his right hand, until he saw the small pen-knife he held.

"Sherlock," he said, "has it ever occurred to you that someone driving past is _not_ going to think 'Oh, I bet that's just Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective, trying to—' What _are_ you doing, anyway?"

From downstairs, John heard a cough, and then Charlie's familiar cries. He started to go down to her, but had only reached the first stair landing before he heard the door of 221c open.

"Got her, John," Harry called up, all sunshine despite the appalling hour.

John waited, listening, until he heard Harry's cheerful tones interspersed with Charlie's crying, and then the latter winding down. Finally, when he was convinced all was well in hand, he went back up to 221b. As if obliging John on the issue of the open curtains, Sherlock was now straddling the carcass in the middle of the living room floor, stabbing it with a ferocity almost terrifying.

"That's… really not any less disturbing than what you were doing before." John scrubbed his hand over his face. "And I'm waiting to hear what this is for."

"Solving crimes is easy," Sherlock said. He got up, puffing, and brushed sweat-soaked curls off his forehead, then gave the carcass a soft little kick of contempt. "You get into the head of the killer. His background, his motivations, his emotional state. Imagine I am this person. _Would_ I kill? Yes. _Who_ would I kill? _How_ would I do it? And then you've found your murderer. The fun part is working out how he or she did it." He paused a moment to get his breath back. " _Except_ in cases where the killer is an unknown quantity, and his victim likely a complete stranger to him."

"And that's why you're stabbing a dead pig in your flat?"

"The killer stabbed Martha Tabram nearly forty times. _Forty_. So I've just done the same on his carcass that Allens of Mayfair was kind enough to let me... have."

This last comment was no surprise. Sherlock had favours owing all over London, and they were sometimes paid back in bizarre ways. John decided he didn't want to know how Sherlock had transported such a thing back to the flat. "Right," he said, shifting the Union Jack pillow on his armchair and sitting down. "And was it enlightening?"

Sherlock seemed to not notice any sarcasm on John's part. "It took me ages," he said. "Now, imagine I'm standing on the landing of a building where thirty-four people live, some of whom are very likely to go up and down the staircase at unusual hours. The stabbing sound alone is loud enough to wake light sleepers on the floor below, even if the victim doesn't scream. It's dark. My victim is drunk and weakened by malnutrition. She's more vulnerable than I am, but still, _I am vulnerable._ Am I really going to stand for several minutes stabbing a woman forty times, when the post-mortem showed the very first blow would have done the job?"

"Yeah, I see what you mean," John said. "But he _did_ do it like that, so why?"

"Ever been to the zoo," Sherlock asked, "and seen animals mating?"

"Being a zoo voyeur isn't one of my hobbies, no."

"I'm being serious, John. One thing everyone who's ever seen animals mating will know is that while they're coupled, they can't be roused or disturbed. Startle mating dragonflies, and the female will fly away with the male still inside her. Startle mating bears, and they won't even notice you're there until they've satiated their urges."

"But Sharon said there was no sign that Martha Tabram had had recent sex."

"And having finally seen the post-mortem report, I agree with that assessment. Not all sexual urges involve the act of intercourse. For this man, the need to hack, to stab, to mutilate, is so overpowering that he'll stand on a dark landing for several minutes doing it. While he's in that mania, nothing will distract him from his task. It's a psychosexual…"

From under a pile of newspapers on the living room table, both of them heard the muffled trill of Sherlock's mobile phone. After a brief hunt he located it, glanced at the Caller ID, and answered: "Sherlock Holmes."

John waited, almost holding his breath. The only time Sherlock ever answered the phone with his full name was when someone from the Met was calling him. And if someone at the Met was calling him at four in the morning…

"Where?" He wandered to the window, picking up his violin bow and examining it for a second, then thunking it down again. "All right," he finally said. "We're coming. Yes. Both of us. Don't do anything until we're there." He hung up the phone and casually tossed it onto the nearby sofa, where it bounced onto the floor. "Another one," he said. "He's killed another one. Buck's Row, Whitechapel. Let's go."

"You know I can't—"

"Even you have to admit that Harriet has her uses. I'll give you two minutes to get dressed."


	6. Buck's Row

Buck's Row turned out to be a snaking, narrow, grubby industrial street, branching off behind Vallance Road, at the point where Sherlock and John exited the cab. They had to follow the curve of the road before they could see the white tent erected around the body, and the little group of uniformed police officers and detectives milling around it. They both spotted Melissa, looking seedy, sheltering under a hilariously incongruous pink Hello Kitty umbrella. She was deep in conversation with a white-haired man in a navy suit. John didn't recognise him, but judging from his dress and demeanour, he was a higher-up in the Metropolitan police. Off to one side, Donovan was talking to two young men in jeans and hoodies. One was fair, the other much darker. Both of them looked rough around the edges, with heads down against the light drizzle coming down and hands shoved in their pockets. Before Sherlock could make his way over to what were clearly witnesses, Lestrade, exiting the evidence tent, spotted them and made his way over.

"Details," Sherlock demanded.

"Not a lot at this stage—we're still trying to identify her. Mid-forties, and possibly a sex worker, judging from her appearance and the fact that she was in Buck's Row at three in the morning, but we don't know whether she was working the street or just on her way somewhere. Either way, she was found twenty-five minutes ago with her throat cut." Lestrade hesitated. "And she has some, um. Other injuries. It's not a pretty sight… oy, where are you going?"

Sherlock, without bothering to interject, had turned to cross the road again. "Looking," he said over his shoulder.

"For what?" Lestrade demanded.

"I'll know when I see it." Sherlock said, turning back to him without stopping. "You two just… you know. Don't wait for me..."

As Sherlock continued up the street in the direction they had come, John looked around. The tent sheltering the body was just outside a brick and chain-link wall, nine or ten feet high, that blocked the view of the train line running below it and Whitechapel station beyond. Across the street was much of the same; John could see the faint, silent outlines of construction cranes out in the darkness. Next to the tent, in the same direction Sherlock and John had approached from, was a block-like building of ugly red Victorian brick that John guessed held residences of some kind. Across the road from this hulking monstrosity was the modern outline of the Whitechapel Sports Centre and beyond it, looming in the distance, the bright lights and smooth curves of The Gherkin; a reminder of a civilised, opulent London far away from these slums. Sherlock had turned his back on it, headed in the direction of warehouses on his left and modest blocks of flats on his right. Abruptly, he disappeared behind a brick wall, and John glanced back at the white evidence tent surrounding the body. The freezing winter air reeked of beer and garbage and blood and piss.

Lestrade nudged John. "Just so's you know," he said, gesturing furtively toward the man Melissa was still deep in conversation with. "That guy over there, white hair, blue suit? Dave Burrows. Deeply involved in recruitment, so... I guess he'll be watching."

Lestrade's dark hints about finding a way to pay John for his work with the Metropolitan Police were slowly coming into focus. The Met currently employed three doctors as Force Medical Examiners, employed to do everything from sedating hysterical witnesses to patching up injured officers. One of these doctors had just put in for her retirement, and another was moving to the United States, leaving a sizable position to fill.

"No pressure, then," John muttered. "What do I do? I'm not a SOCO or a pathologist."

"It's fine; nobody's expecting you to be. I'll ask you for some thoughts on the body, though. Don't let Sherlock bully you down this time, John. I can't sell you as a Met employee if you just follow him` around and agree with everything he says, especially if he's being an arse."

"If I could stop him from being an arse, I'd have done it years ago."

"Just don't let him bully you, is all I'm saying. If you're sure of what you're saying, just out and say it." Lestrade was still gazing up the street where Sherlock had gone reconnoitring, though he could no longer be seen. "On that note," he said in upbeat tones, "want to have a look at this body?"

"No."

Lestrade raised one eyebrow.

"Fine," John confessed, starting to smile. "Yes."

* * *

The dead woman was not a pretty sight. She clearly hadn't been in life; she had been dumpy and plain-faced, with her curly brown hair showing greasy swipes of grey running up from the temples. As a corpse, she was repellent. Her eyes and mouth were both half-open, and John fought off the sudden impulse to reach across and close them in turn. She seemed so vulnerable, lying in the dirty, wet street, but her troubles were clearly over. Beneath that frozen face, her throat gaped open in crimson gore. The dress she wore was black, but under the unforgiving spotlights inside the tent, John could see it was also soaked in blood. And there was a certain tempestuous appearance about the fabric…

"I'm not going to touch her clothes," he said, looking up at Lestrade. "The SOCOs would kill me. But I'm guessing from the looks of things she was, uh. Disemboweled."

Lestrade nodded. "So I'm told. I haven't had a look myself."

John got to his feet with a little involuntary grunt of effort. They both looked down at the dead woman in silence for a few seconds.

"So Emma Smith was beaten up and raped with a blunt object," John mused, "Martha Tabram was stabbed thirty-nine times, and this woman… from the looks of things, she was strangled, had her throat cut, and was disemboweled. Do serial killers do that? Change M.O?"

"From what I've seen, yeah," Lestrade said. "If they're doing what this guy's doing and working their way up. Figuring out what works best for them, and all that."

"Shit."

"We need to get him, John. God knows what he's going to do to the next w—hang on. Did you just say she was strangled?"

John nodded, getting back down beside the corpse reluctantly. On the other side, Lestrade did the same. "See," he said, indicating the woman's throat with one finger. "Bruises just above the slash. Thumb marks, I think."

"Could he have done that with one hand while he was cutting her throat with the other?"

John considered this. "Could have, but I'll bet he didn't. There's not a whole lot of blood for a cut throat, and no arterial spray, either. I'd say her heart had already stopped by the time he brought the knife out and went to work." He paused, suddenly remembering. "God, of course," he said. "Molly had a look through Sharon's post-mortem notes on Martha Tabram. She thinks s _he_ was strangled before he stabbed her. That's M.O…" He turned at the sound of someone just outside the tent. Sherlock lifted the flap and came in.

"Gifford's going to murder you for coming this close to the body without protective gear," Lestrade said.

"For God's sake, there's probably three dozen hair samples on the body already; mine won't make much of a difference," Sherlock said. "And if you've found no-one else to positively identify her, I will."

Lestrade blinked, and he and John exchanged an alarmed glance. "You what? You know her?"

"Homeless Network," Sherlock muttered, without looking at either of them.

"Oh, God, Sherlock. I'm sorry," John said. Sherlock might have fooled most people into thinking the Homeless Network were simply down-and-outs he shamelessly manipulated for his own ends, but John knew better. Many of them were what passed for friends in Sherlock's world.

Sherlock acknowledged this with a grim nod. "Her name is Mary Ann Nichols," he said. "She sometimes goes by 'Polly'. Early forties, divorced, five children. Her husband had an affair with the midwife who delivered their youngest child, according to the story she told anyone who would listen. And yes, she was a sex worker."

"Addict?"

"Alcoholic. I never knew her to touch drugs. I think when the pathologist lays her out they'll find no evidence of it."

With monumental effort, John avoided looking at Greg. Any indication that people were pitying him was likely to have Sherlock on the retreat. Before he could say anything else, Sherlock reached down and pulled the dead woman's skirt up all the way to her breasts.

"Oh, God." John winced. "Come on, Sherlock."

"She's dead, John; she doesn't mind," Sherlock reminded him absently, examining the injuries to the mass of gore that had once been the woman's abdomen.

"Forensics—"

"—Have already photographed her _in situ_ and taken the necessary samples. Not that that will do them much good. I doubt he's in the system… John, what do you make of these injuries?"

"Going to need a hint as to what you mean, Sherlock."

"How long do you think it would take you to do this on a surgical table?"

John, with a sigh, gave the injuries his full attention for a minute or two. "Hard to tell," was the disappointing answer. "He's gone in at a weird angle. I wouldn't think he's a surgeon, if that's what you're asking, but we'll know more once the PM shows exactly what he's done."

"Throat injury?"

"Same thing. You don't need to be an expert to run a knife through someone's throat."

"And yet, you've missed the most important thing, even though we were talking about it at Baker Street half an hour ago," Sherlock said, pulling the dead woman's dress back into place. "Look at her dress, John. Actually look at it."

John obligingly looked, though for the life of him he couldn't see anything but an ordinary LBD, hideously unsuited to the body it was on, even before that body had been eviscerated.

Sherlock groaned in despair. "Come on. _Look at it_. Look at her injuries. Make the connection…"

A sudden light went on. "The dress isn't slashed," John said.

"Thank God, you do have some semblence of a brain."

For a moment, John wondered. Sherlock had been extraordinarily quiet since arriving at the crime scene. Quiet so far as his habits went, anyhow, and less than forthcoming with all of the usual facts, figures, observations and deductions. Sulking? Upset? He'd known the dead woman, after all, and maybe known her better than he was saying. Bored? After the "present" the killer had left on the windowsill of 221a, that seemed unlikely. "So he didn't go through her dress with the knife," he said, puzzling this out aloud. "He pulled it up. Did he do it to sexually assault her?"

"Impossible to say until the post-mortem. At an excellent guess, I'd say he _did_ sexually assault her, but in his own way. After killing her almost instantly, he decided to stop _on a public street,_ pull her dress up, and eviscerate her."

John remembered. The mating animals who couldn't be put off from their biological urges.

"But he wasn't caught," he reminded Sherlock. "And okay, I think we already knew we were looking for a lunatic. Anyway, where were you just now?"

"Out looking."

"For what?"

"Vantage points. Almost anyone in six buildings around here could have seen or heard Nichols being murdered. _Did_ anyone?"

"Not that we know of," Lestrade said. "The guy who found her _nearly_ did, apparently. Come on; I'll show you." He led them out of the tent, perhaps eager to get away from the body, or to get Sherlock away from it, or both. "That guy over there," he said, pointing across the street to the men Donovan was still talking with. "Charles Cross…" He gave a shrill whistle. Donovan turned, and he beckoned to her. With a slightly put-upon attitude, she made her way over. John's first expectation was that she was going to remind Lestrade that she wasn't his dog and didn't respond to whistles, but it seemed she had other issues.

"Thank God," she said. "You called me just in time. I was about to strangle the bastard."

"Which one?"

"Oh, they both deserve it, but let me tell you about our friend Charles Cross. He's a delivery driver for Pickfords, and walks down here on his way to work every morning. Didn't see it happen, but he was first on the scene. He said when he got here she was still _bleeding_."

John blinked. "Well, I doubt that's true," he said. "If she was still bleeding, she was still alive. Did he check?"

"No."

John suddenly felt sick. He had an image of the woman, Mary Ann Nichols, in her very last moments on earth; conscious, terrified, unable to beg for help through a slashed throat.

"Yeah, I've already given him a bollocking for that, and I don't think I was the first," Donovan was saying. "And then it gets better. He's standing there, doing bugger-all to help, when along comes our second genius for today, the other bloke, Robert Paul. According to both of them, Cross calls Paul over, and Paul said _he_ thought then that she might've been breathing."

"So as far as both of them are concerned, they stood there and let her die."

"Oh, they did even better," Donovan said, jaw set; she was genuinely angry, but with half a dozen colleagues watching, she wasn't free to show it. "Robert Paul also starts work at half-past four, and neither of them wanted to be late in. Cross says he couldn't get mobile reception; Paul doesn't have a phone on him. They decided to continue on to work and call the police when they could be bothered."

 _"What?"_

"Yeah. They only raised the alarm because they found PC Jack Neil on his beat in Brady Street and told him there was a woman lying dead in Buck's Row. When Neil got here, he found a PC Mizen had beat him here and was already calling a third officer, PC Thain. And there they are," she said, gesturing further down to where the police officers in question were huddled, "and here we are. What a cock-up. And now I've got Cross and Paul both bitching at me because I won't let them go off to work."

John frowned slightly. Donovan's accent put her origins at somewhere east of the city, and he'd always assumed she was solidly working class. But from her complete lack of sympathy with the witnesses, she'd clearly never grown up in a family that was one paycheque away from being evicted. He wondered what Sherlock made of Donovan's motivations in this case.

"Guess who's now my main suspect?" Lestrade said, glancing over at Cross. Behind him, Melissa excused herself and started to make her way over to them.

"Mine too," Donovan said. "He couldn't be more dodgy if he tried. Found the body when she was possibly not even dead yet, with no witnesses. Says he didn't see a soul in the street in front of him, or hear anything—nearly tripped over her, according to him."

"Then he's lying," Sherlock said. "Look around. Only a blind man wouldn't be able to see her all the way from the corner."

"Exactly. But why _these_ women?" Lestrade asked. "They're all of a type—middle-aged alcoholics turning tricks for enough money to buy a beer or timeshare a bed in a lodging house."

"I think you were right from the first word," Donovan said. "Middle-aged. At a guess, I'd say mummy-issues."

"Then you'd be wrong," Sherlock said. "Serial killers, contrary to popular myth, do not restrict themselves to particular types of victims, except by gender and by race. This man will take whatever woman will go with him."

"Definitely a man?"

"Definitely. And he wouldn't turn down a victim simply because she was twenty and attractive. But an attractive twenty-year-old isn't likely to take a stranger onto a stairwell or into an alleyway for a sexual assignation. These women are easy prey, that's all."

A short silence fell over them, until Donovan, glancing up, gestured over Lestrade's shoulder. Dyer was on his way over, flanked by DC Chris Halloran and a solid, broad-faced woman John didn't recognise. Judging from her body language, she was another detective.

"Dyer," Lestrade said, overcompensating, as he so often did, for the personal relationship Jacob Dyer had with his family. "Let's have it. Assuming there's anything for us to have. We're not having much luck with this so far."

"So I knocked on the doors of all those flats up there," Dyer said, pointing up to the top of the street, on the opposite side of the warehouses Sherlock had been prowling around. "Got nothing, would you believe? A woman gets her throat cut on a public street in the middle of the East End, and nobody sees or hears a single thing."

"Who lives in the nearest flat?" Sherlock asked him.

Dyer glanced at his notes. "A Mrs. Fiona Green and her three kids."

"I need to interview them."

"I already—"

"No, _I_ need to interview them. They may not have noticed anything, but they certainly heard something, and probably saw it." Sherlock glanced regretfully over at the witnesses, Cross and Paul.

"I can't detain those two for long," Lestrade explained, understanding the dilemma. "Not unless I arrest them."

"Ask them for fingerprints and DNA samples," Sherlock said, "and bring them in for formal interviewing. I'll get to them as soon as I can, but I _need_ to get to them."


	7. See No Evil

Judging from the look on PC Jack Neil's face as he trudged back up from the end of the street, his enquiries as to whether there were any witnesses to the murder of Mary Ann Nichols had come up with bugger-all.

"There are two security guards down at the Sports Centre," he told Lestrade. "And then two more at a couple of factories up toward the railway line. None of them said they heard or saw anything suspicious. If you ask me, though, the bloke on security at Brown and Eagles' wouldn't have noticed if I'd punched him in the face."

"You should've," Lestrade said sourly. "It might've helped jog his memory." By East End standards, Buck's Row had been quiet and still when the first responders arrived. But it was still a city street, and there were people living and working close by. Lestrade had sent PCs Neil, Thain and Mizen in opposite directions to make enquiries, and each of them had come back with nothing to report. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything.

And if Lestrade had been inclined to mistrust the officers at Bishopsgate, his own crew had backed this up. Why Sherlock had insisted on going back with Dyer and John to interview Fiona Green was a mystery to him; she'd already told Dyer she had no useful information. Almost directly across the street was another flat, one tenanted by a Walter Purkiss and his wife. Purkiss, a grubby, middle-aged man with appalling bad breath, had told Lestrade in person that he hadn't heard or seen anything. Neither had his wife, even though she was sick with gastro and had been up and down from her bed all night.

"What I don't understand, sir," PC Neil said, taking off his cap momentarily to shake the rain off it, "is how come _I_ didn't see anything. I mean, that's the whole point of being on the beat, yeah?"

"Yeah," Lestrade said, unimpressed. "You didn't have a partner with you?" It had been a while since he'd been in uniform, but he distinctly remembered the old rule that officers were not allowed to wander about in uniform on their own, especially in dodgy areas.

Neil laughed, though he didn't sound amused. He was a big, barrel-chested young man with a ruddy face and a no-nonsense attitude; he struck Lestrade as the sort of person who was brought up the eldest of fourteen siblings. "Budget cuts," he explained.

"Great."

"You're telling me. One officer on his beat, armed with a glorified stick, isn't going to scare a roving gang, now, are they?"

"You didn't see any roving gangs tonight, though."

Neil shook his head. "Not tonight," he said, in tones that implied this had made for an unusual shift. "But this beat never took me far from here, sir. Just through Whitechapel Road and up Baker's Row." He pointed in that direction. "I started at two, and I've been up this street every fifteen minutes since… he's a quick bugger, then, with nerves of steel." He paused, fumbling, as if unsure of how to put his thoughts respectfully. "Might she have been killed somewhere else and dumped, sir? Didn't look like much blood to me, and that'd explain why nobody heard anything. You'd barely notice a car driving down this way…"

Whatever he said next, Lestrade couldn't hear it. A train had just shunted its way along the railway line below them, and its roar cut across even Neil's sturdy Welsh baritone.

Lestrade stood deep in thought as he waited for the engine to pass. John could have been right about the strangulation, of course. Either that, or the killer might have taken advantage of the timing of the trains…

"Inspector Lestrade…?"

He turned to see Philip Anderson had just exited the evidence tent still surrounding the body, head to foot in scrubs. He decided not to tell him that Sherlock had been in the tent with no protective gear on at all, unless circumstances forced him to.

"Anderson." With an apologetic nod to Jack Neil, Lestrade dismissed him and went over to him. "Hey, look, both PC Neil and I have had the same thought seperately, so I thought it worth an ask: she wasn't killed elsewhere and dumped, was she?"

Anderson shook his head. "I can see why you'd think that, but it looks like most of the blood soaked into her clothes and pooled underneath her. And on that note, I've found something interesting—it's too hard to explain, so you'd better come and see what I mean..."

* * *

Once Dyer, Sherlock and John reached the footpath outside the flat of Fiona Green and her three children, it became obvious that one of the Green children was a baby. A very unhappy baby. The dishevelled, fortyish woman who answered to Dyer's knock looked close to passing out from exhaustion, though behind her the hall floor was waxed to a blinding sheen and they caught a glimpse of an upmarket kitchen, all shining chrome and glass. A working professional, Sherlock immediately decided. One who was paid well and had a generous maternity leave entitlement that had run out in the last week or two. Despite the appalling hour, all three of her children were up and active. A small girl of four or five stood open-mouthed in the far doorway, staring shyly at them through a thick fringe of dark brown hair. Obviously an inheritance from her father, though her pointed chin and huge green eyes were uncannily like her mother's. A small boy, perhaps two years old, scampered across the hall wearing a pair of rompers. The miserable baby was in Fiona's arms. He was a dull child, with a head so bald he seemed to not have any hair at all, wingnut ears, and eyes that were deep-set and too close together. Sherlock thought of tiny Sophie, with her delicate Hooper features, damp dark hair and butterfly eyelashes.

"We're so sorry to disturb you again," Dyer was saying.

"Oh, you could hardly disturb us any more than Max is," Fiona said wearily, brushing a frizzled lock of dyed blonde hair off her forehead with one hand. Baby Max was flushed and restless in her arms, and abruptly went into a fit of bark-like coughing.

"That sounds like croup," John said. Then, seeing Fiona's expression, "Oh, um. Hi. John Watson," he said, holding his hand out for Fiona to shake. "I'm actually a doctor. I'm here with the detectives because… actually, yeah, never mind that. Can I ask, how old is Max?"

"Thirteen weeks."

John nodded. "Immunised?"

"Of course," she said.

"You'd be surprised how often I hear 'no'," John said. "I don't think it's whooping cough, but I thought I'd do my best to rule it out anyway."

"Do you know, Dr. Watson," Sherlock said amiably, steering John toward the staircase that led up to the second level of the flat. "You and Mrs. Green should take the baby upstairs so you can talk about this in privacy."

"Sherlock," John protested. "We haven't even—"

"Hippocratic oath, do no harm, you know—"

John glanced at Fiona. _Behave,_ he mouthed to Sherlock, when he was sure she wasn't watching.

"Always," Sherlock replied audibly, then, realising he'd forgotten to, he also held out one hand for Fiona to shake. "Ms. Green? Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective for the Metropolitan Police," he said briskly. "Detective Constable Dyer and I would be delighted to keep an eye on your older children while Dr. Watson has a look at little… er… Max."

Reluctantly, John followed Fiona up the narrow staircase. Sherlock turned back to the hall where Dyer was still standing, looking a little bewildered at what had just transpired.

"Sherlock," he whispered, folding his arms. "You know we can't interview the kids. It's _illegal_. And even if it wasn't, these two are both way too young to take their evidence into—"

"I'm not a lawyer," Sherlock said. "If we find Polly's killer, I don't care how we got there legally."

Dyer sighed. "You seriously think kids in nursery school can help us anyway?"

"Perhaps. You'd be surprised at what they notice. More importantly, young children don't make up justifications for things they can't explain…"

The girl had just padded into the hall in her bare feet, full of curiosity. She circled Sherlock carefully once or twice before pulling at his sleeve and announcing, "Excuse me. I'm four!"

Automatically, Sherlock found himself reaching for one of Lestrade's insufferable Dad-jokes; one he'd used when a seven-year-old witness had made a similar declaration out of the blue the year before. "Hi, Four," he said. "I'm Sherlock."

She giggled. "No!" she said. "I'm Emily! I'm four, I just had my birthday."

"Oh," he said. "… Happy birthday."

"We had cake."

"Did you?" More of Lestrade's kid-side manner.

"Chocolate cake."

"… I like chocolate cake too." Was that the right thing to say? He couldn't see anything controversial about it. Apparently, Dyer didn't feel he needed further handling. Sherlock watched him go down the hall and into the room where the boy had just disappeared.

"You look sad," Emily said, peering up at Sherlock. "Why are you sad?"

This was decidedly more dangerous than discussing the merits of chocolate cake and birthdays, especially given her age. "Because," he said, "a lady got hurt outside, a little while ago."

"Oh." Her brow furrowed. "Did she fall over?"

"Maybe. We think someone might have pushed her over on purpose." Sherlock knelt down to Emily's level. "Did you hear anything from outside a little while ago?" he asked her. "Maybe you heard the lady crying, or someone being mean to her…?"

Emily considered this, then shook her head. "Nope," she said brightly. "All I could hear was Max crying. He's been crying for aaaaaages..."

* * *

If Sherlock expected him to use a sick baby as an excuse to connive information out of Fiona Green, John thought vindictively as she handed baby Max over to him, then he had another thing coming. Nichols was dead, and no changing that. Max Green was alive, and John's priority was keeping him that way.

"Pretty miserable," was his final opinion, after examining the baby as best he could without benefit of equipment like a stethoscope. "Mid-range fever. Is he teething yet?"

"Not that I can tell. Dean and Emily didn't teeth until about five months."

"Then all that drooling is a bit of a worry—he mightn't be able to swallow his own saliva properly, and that's a choking hazard…" Then, seeing her expression, he said, "I don't think it's worth your while rushing him to A&E. But he does need to see a doctor as soon as it's convenient—I can't examine him properly or prescribe anything right here and now. Listen, can you get him over to Shoreditch later this morning? Got a friend in private practice there who might be able to see you. Dr. Abato. He's good—I'd trust him with my own kids. We can give you a cab voucher if you're having trouble with transportation."

"Thank you," she said in some bewilderment, reaching out to take Max back. "That's very kind of you."

"Not often you get a house call these days," John agreed, adopting his usual professional mannerisms as he pulled his notepad and a pencil out of his pocket and scrawled out a note to Nicholas Abato, another old friend from Bart's. Taking advantage of the lull in conversation, he kept an ear out for the activity still going on in the street outside. But although the flashing lights were visible through the half-open window, he could hear nothing much except Max's grizzling noises and the other children downstairs… Was Sherlock interrogating a _toddler_ down there?

"Now listen," he said in his most confidential way, handing the note over. "Like I say, I've got three kids, and I know what it's like to sit up all night with a sick baby. You didn't hear or see anything unusual from outside in the last, say, hour or two?"

"If you're a dad of three," Fiona said, putting one weary hand to her forehead, "then you'd know I didn't. All I was concentrating on was Max. I don't think I'd have noticed if World War Three had broken out in the street."


	8. Hear No Evil

And that, apparently, was where the matter was destined to lay. When John came downstairs again, both Sherlock and Dyer seemed keen to leave. After nudging Sherlock toward a civilised goodbye, John trailed after him, but neither he nor Dyer said anything until they were well clear of the kerb.

"Well," Sherlock said, with only a hint of dryness. "If nothing else, _you_ had a successful visit, John. Another life saved."

"Oh, not really," John said, fishing into his jeans pocket and checking he still had his wallet on him. "I mean, not Max's life, anyway."

"How do you mean?"

John shrugged. "He's got croup," he said, matter-of-fact. "Even Charlie's had that. It's rarely life-threatening; he'll get over it, mostly without help. Fiona, on the other hand, has a mole on her neck that looks like a melanoma to me. I'm not an expert, so I told her to take Max to a GP I know in Shoreditch who'll have a better idea what he's looking at. When it's a decent hour, I'll send him a text about it, see if he'll take a quick look at Fiona as well as Max."

Sherlock looked confused. "Why the subterfuge?" he asked. "You could have just told Fiona herself to have it looked at."

"No, I _couldn't,_ Sherlock," John snapped. "She's got three little kids to care for, and I don't know about you, but _I_ noticed there were no photos of the kids' dad in the living room. The last thing she needs is me suggesting she's got cancer, when I'm not even an expert and Nick Abato is."

Sherlock opened his mouth for a comeback, but something in John's tone stopped him. When Dyer refused to meet his gaze he fell silent, looking out onto the dark railway line as if doing so could help him further the case. In the distance, another train shuttled along toward them, a sleek, luxurious creature forging a path over grimy tracks and between piss-stained concrete walls.

Just when the atmosphere was becoming unbearable, and Dyer was clearly trying to think up something to say to break it, all three of them heard Sherlock's phone ringing. He pulled it out and answered it with "What?"

"I love you too," Lestrade said down the line. Across the street, they saw him emerge from the tent again and hail them with one hand. "Come over. You're going to be pleased with me for a change."

"What? Why?"

"Because I know something about Mary Ann Nichols that you don't. Or, okay, Anderson found it. I'll show you, and then we'll go ask Charles Cross what he thinks."

* * *

By the time Charles Cross had been taken back to Bishopsgate Police Station for questioning, it was nearly five o'clock in the morning. Lestrade's headache hadn't improved, and neither had his mood. He stalked into the interview room where Cross and his appointed lawyer were waiting for him, with Sherlock and John close behind him. John had barely closed the door behind them when Lestrade opened the proceedings with, "Take off your hood."

Cross—a sullen, fair-haired young man, barely out of boyhood—did not react. The dark blue hoodie he wore, so big and encompassing that it looked like a fleece duvet, granted him some form of anonymity. Without his half-shaved hair, the bolt in his left ear and the black tattoo spidering down one neck, he could have been anyone.

And so could the killer of Martha Tabram, when he'd slipped away from George Yard Buildings in the half-light of a Sunday morning, right under the nose of a watchful police officer.

"Oy." Lestrade leaned across the table and flipped Cross's hood back.

"Hey," he protested, drawing back. For the first time they saw his face clearly:l his flecked skin, still scarred with recent acne, and the weak top lip pulled up over his front teeth into a sort of permanent snarl. "You can't touch me!"

"Just did," Lestrade said.

Cross looked incredulously at his lawyer, a thin, white-haired man that Lestrade knew only as 'Evan'. "He's not allowed to do that to me," he said to him. "Is he? He can't, right? That's assault, that is—"

"Tell someone who cares." Lestrade sat down. "I've been busy investigating the murder of a woman who was disembowelled this morning, so I'm not bothered about wrecking your hair, mate. Here, have some pretty pictures." He pulled a stack of 8x12 colour prints out from where he'd tucked them under his jacket and tossed them onto the table between them, then scattered them about to display each.

"Aww, _fuck,"_ Cross said, wincing and turning his head away.

"Is that what you said when you found her? Because Robert Paul says you said to him, and I quote, 'Come look, there's some minger lying over here,'" Lestrade said, disgusted. "So, sorry if I'm not going to spare your precious eyes right now. Look at these pictures for me. Actually look at them."

He continued to arrange the colour photographs, in all their gruesome glory, out on the table in front of them. Mary Ann Nichols' pathetic black dress; her bulging eyes; her bare, bloodstained legs.

"See my problem?" Lestrade asked him.

Cross looked confused and glanced at Evan again, as if asking for help.

"She didn't fall like that," Lestrade said. " _Nobody_ falls like that. See that smear of blood on the backs of her legs? It's an interesting pattern, and made an interesting pattern on the concrete. So interesting that we had four detectives, three SOCOs and a doctor have a look at it, and we all said the same thing. We all said, 'this woman was moved.'"

Lestrade did not point out that he had missed it at first glance, and neither did Sherlock. So far, Sherlock hadn't ventured a word, though the rapid back-and-forth movements of his grey eyes indicated he was gathering as much data as possible on Charles Cross, short of asking for it.

"Why did you move her? That was stupid," Lestrade continued. "Because when we go for fingerprints and DNA, we're going to find yours on her, aren't we? Tell us what she looked like when you found her, and hurry up about it."

Cross took a deep breath. "Her knees were up," he said. "They were… like, out. Like she'd just, you know."

Lestrade looked at him expectantly. "No, I don't know," he said. "You're going to have to be a grown-up and tell me."

"Like she'd just… had sex," he said, barely above a whisper. "I didn't want to see her, you know, _like that,_ so I…" He swallowed.

"So you found an unconscious rape victim bleeding all over the pavement, and your priority was to make sure you didn't see her vagina," Lestrade said, with a slight emphasis on the last word and evident enjoyment of Cross's squirming. "That was noble of you."

"Well, I knew she was dead, right, so…"

"Really?" Lestrade glanced at Sherlock, who nodded slightly. "Because you told me an hour ago you thought she might have been still alive when you found her."

"No, that was the other guy, whatsisface." Cross and Paul, it seemed, didn't know one another and had no immediate reason to protect one another. As the questioning got more intense, they had more and more reason to throw one another under the bus at the slightest provocation.

"You sure about that?" Lestrade asked. "Because first off, you _did_ say it was you, and secondly, Robert Paul _also_ says it was you. I know it's hard to keep a fake story straight, but I've seen drunks do a better job of it, mate. It's just gone five in the morning, and I'm really not in the mood to follow along while you change your lies every two minutes. If you just told the truth, we'd all find this a lot quicker and easier."

But Cross, it seemed, did not agree. By seven, having got nowhere except a confusing string of denials, Lestrade concluded the interview. As he wearily explained to Sherlock and John once Cross and Evan had staged their triumphant exit, he had no legal cause to detain Cross based on the information he had.

"And you said barely anything, except to ask him to repeat what he did this morning backwards," he complained to Sherlock as he signed the paperwork releasing his suspect. "Thought you were desperate to interview him."

"What he thought he was telling you was irrelevant," Sherlock said. "What he actually told you—with his word choice, his omissions, his hands, his facial expressions—now _that_ —"

"Sherlock, unless you're going to tell me whether he did it or not, can we not do this right now?"

"Fine," Sherlock said, exhaling. "Everything I observed told me that Cross was telling the truth, but not the whole truth. He certainly has some unusual feelings about female sexuality that would bear further scrutiny, but I didn't get the smoking gun I expected."

John cleared his throat.

"Wanted," Sherlock corrected himself, with a deprecatory glance in John's direction.

"Great," Lestrade said. "Three victims now—"

"Two," Sherlock said. "I still strongly doubt Emma Smith was killed by the same person who killed Martha Tabram and Mary Ann Nichols. Different _modus operandi_ entirely."

"Fine, two. I still call that a serial killer. I thought you were good at those, Sherlock."

"I _am_ 'good at those'," Sherlock said. "I've already caught five of them for you, not including the Hope children."

"Then come _on_." Lestrade grabbed at his wrist, seeking out eye contact until Sherlock, with a huff, granted it. "Help me, here," he said earnestly. " _Please_. One more victim, and this thing is going to explode. The game is on, right? I know you think this is too boring to be bothered with, but it's not boring for _me_ , and I bet it's not boring for every woman who risks coming into contact with this guy. Step it up…"

At that moment, Dave Burrows appeared in the doorway that led from the public lobby to the staff-only division of the police station, scanning the room. Once his gaze fell on Lestrade, he beckoned him with two fingers.

John felt something in his chest tighten. If Burrows was involved in Metropolitan police recruitment, but had shown up at a suburban police station outside his jurisdiction to speak to Lestrade, whatever he had to say about that recruitment couldn't wait.

"Excuse me." With an apologetic glance at John, Lestrade dismissed himself and went across to Burrows.

Sherlock stormed out of the lobby, with John trailing behind. He'd barely reached the footpath beyond the station steps before, in flagrant disregard for anti-smoking laws, he pulled out a cigarette and lit up.

John said nothing, instead watching a young couple at a bus stop across the street having a lover's quarrel while Sherlock got through half the cigarette in sulky silence. Finally he cleared his throat. "So," he said, trying to sound casual. "Are you still going to see Seamus this morning?"

"How thrilling that you've been keeping track of my appointments," Sherlock said. "Yes. Ten o'clock. I can't see how Lestrade will let me do otherwise, without bringing Mycroft into this."

"You heard him, Sherlock. He's desperate. If he'd rather you talk to Seamus this morning than catch him a killer, he's serious about wanting you to stay clean."

"I _am_ clean."

John decided not to challenge this declaration. Instead, he waited until Sherlock had finished the rest of the cigarette. "Maybe just let Seamus know you've been up all night and feel like hell," he said, watching him throw the butt into the gutter. "It'll go in his notes if he thinks you're acting strangely… or more strangely than normal."

"I don't _care_ what he thinks," Sherlock said petulantly.

"Perhaps you should. That's the idea of therapy, isn't it?"

"I don't know. So far I've seen absolutely no benefit in therapy. I've no idea why you like it so much."

John hesitated, remembering Sherlock's free-association writing and Mycroft's suggestion of the world's most awkward family reunion. "I know I said I wasn't going to make you share your therapist's notes with me," he said. "But if something important _does_ come up in therapy, you'll let me know, right?"

Sherlock raised one eyebrow. "Just what," he said, "is that supposed to mean?"

"You've said the same to me," he said, and that was true enough to acquit himself of anything too strongly resembling sentiment. He glanced at his watch. It was twenty past seven; Nichols' post-mortem examination had been scheduled for half-past nine. "Come on; I think we're done here. I'm starving, and I need a shower and a change of clothes if I'm getting spoiled by my second post-mortem in a week…"

He trailed off as his phone rang. Pulling it out of his pocket, he saw that it was Harry. His heart skipped a beat and he nearly dropped the phone in his haste to answer it. "Harry?"

"Hey," she said. Nothing wrong with Charlie, then, though she sounded more rattled than usual. "Where are you?"

"Bishopsgate. What's wrong?"

"I don't know if anything really is _wrong_ ," she said. "I went to get something from the basement flat and someone's pushed something weird through the letterbox… a rose. With what looks like one of those crocheted bracelets wrapped around it… calm down, John, I didn't touch it. I'm not a moron. I took some pictures on my phone, though, because you're going to take it out the minute you open the front door."

"And Charlie's okay?"

"Still fast asleep. What's going on?"

"I don't know," he said. "But I'm coming home. Leave everything where it is. Look after Charlie."

It was only as he was hanging up the phone that John remembered Sherlock was in earshot and hanging off every word. "Another rose?" he asked.

"With a woven bracelet around it, Harry says." John shoved the phone into his pocket. "Pushed through the letterbox. I guess the alarm system warned him off after all."

They looked at each other.

"John," Sherlock said slowly, and though his expression was serious there was a hint of something playful in it. "Do you know, I'm not going to therapy this morning after all."

"Glad to hear it." John held out one hand to hail a cab that had just turned into the street. "Come on."


	9. A Salute

Sherlock and John arrived back at Baker Street in record time, to find the rose sitting innocuously where Harry had left it and the flat otherwise at peace. John left Sherlock on his hands and knees in the foyer, examining the evidence, and went through to the kitchen of 221a where Harry was making breakfast and turning a blind eye to Toby, sitting on the kitchen table.

"Where's Charlie?" John asked, lifting the purring tabby and giving him an apologetic pat on the head before putting him on the floor.

"Good morning to you too, John." Harry pointed to the ajar sitting-room doors. "Up and dressed. In there, playing with her baby, last I saw, which was about ten seconds before you walked in."

"Quiet morning at Baker Street, then," John muttered, looking in on his small daughter and finding things were exactly as Harry had described them.

"Didn't hear anything unusual at all," Harry agreed, pulling plates out of the cupboard just as Sherlock wandered in, the macabre bundle in the palm of his hand. "Breakfast, Sherlock. That's not a question."

"I don't have time for that," Sherlock muttered, examining the bracelet wrapped around the rose stem. It was a treble-stitch of stiff twine, in shades of red, blue and yellow.

"Yes you do," she said, pointing to a chair, even though Sherlock hadn't once looked up at her. "While we're all just sitting here, I assume waiting for Mycroft to show up with the security tapes. Is Greg on his way as well? Because if so, I need to run over to the cafe. We're low on milk again."

Both Lestrade and Melissa were on their way, and Melissa arrived first, with her new husband several minutes behind her. Mycroft, never in a hurry for anyone, was going to take a little longer.

"I was sure you were going to be too busy," John said as he let Greg into the flat. "Who'd you leave in charge of the crime scene? Donovan?"

"Cuffing Dyer around like a lion with a cub as we speak." Lestrade smiled. "Don't look at me like that. From what Sherlock tells me, I'm here on business. I prefer this to liaising with the press."

"You're good at it," John said, and he meant it. It was true that Greg's snarky side sometimes came out to play when he felt tired and harassed, and this _was_ sometimes mid-press conference, but so far it hadn't done his career or reputation any harm.

"Am I?" he said wearily. "Thanks."

"It's true, you know," Melissa said, reaching out and squeezing his hand. "I mean, they _could_ have picked you to interview because of your good looks, but they didn't."

If their recent wedding had been any less horrific, the two of them would be honeymooning somewhere on the Mediterranean just now. Though they were both now put to chasing a serial killer through a record cold spell in London, Melissa was full of honeymoon awe. As was Greg, John decided, noting the look he gave his new wife. Obviously, Greg didn't find that Silver Fox stuff as funny as everyone else.

Once Mycroft had finally condescended to grace Baker Street with his presence, the little group went up to 221b—with the exception of Harry, who pre-empted being excluded by declaring she wasn't interested anyway, and preferred to stay downstairs and keep an eye on Charlie.

"I'm afraid you won't like this, Sherlock," Mycroft said, putting the DVD into the player and reaching for the remote.

"Oh, Christ. Don't tell me something happened and it blanked out," Lestrade said.

"No, I have the footage," Mycroft said, concentrating on navigating an unfamiliar DVD remote until he reached the place in the tape he needed. The camera had been set up just outside Speedy's, and showed a narrow view of the street just outside the front door and a glimpse of the railway station beyond. "There's you and John leaving, Sherlock; stamped two minutes past four this morning," Mycroft said. Then he fast forwarded. "Twenty-nine minutes past four. And here, in the next twelve seconds, is your delivery."

"A good ten minutes before we even reached the crime scene," Sherlock muttered into his hands, watching for the first signs of human life on the surveillance tape. "He lost no time going straight to my door after he'd killed her. It was his priority…"

They watched at the footage in silence. At first, nothing. Then a small figure, shrugged into a charcoal-coloured hoodie and baggy jeans strolled into view from the direction of the railway station. After a quick look around, he pulled something out of his pocket, shoved it through the letterbox, and ran.

"Hang on," Lestrade said. "That's a _kid_ …"

"Observation worthy of a detective." Sherlock snatched the remote out of Mycroft's hands to rewind and pause the tape; but even facing the camera, it was hard to make out the stranger's features. "Yes. He's used a child as his courier. Male, caucasian, and aged between ten and twelve years old, judging by his limb proportions. If you're intending to track him down, Lestrade, use caution. The killer will have no qualms in killing his messengers if he thinks they might tell the police all they know. Which, in any case, won't be much… here's ten quid. Drop this harmless thing through that letterbox; won't that be a laugh?"

"Well, all right, then there might be an upside to this," Lestrade said.

"An upside?" John looked skeptical.

"If he's sending kids around with his weird little love letters to Sherlock, he clearly doesn't mean anyone at Baker Street any physical harm, does he?"

"Unless the next kid he sends is strapped to a bomb," John muttered.

"The roses," Sherlock said, but it was mostly to himself. "They have to mean something. Lestrade, did you search for any cases involving roses, flowers…?"

Lestrade nodded. "Nothing came up as a Met case from the time I've worked here. Maybe it refers to something before that…or one of your private cases."

"The thought occurred." Sherlock got up and started pacing. "And so did this: why me?"

"Well, because you're _you_ ," John said, as if this in itself was obvious. "Sherlock Holmes. A criminal who walked out of the way of three police officers this morning wants to taunt the greatest detective in London."

Sherlock looked at him.

"I mean, the world," he said contritely. He was contemplating whether it would be necessary to feed Sherlock's ego any further when Mycroft suddenly broke in for the first time.

"No," he said.

Sherlock snapped to attention. "Sorry," he said. "What?"

"This isn't a taunt, and both of you are obfuscating the issue by concentrating on the roses."

Sherlock frowned and blurted out a phrase few ever heard him say: "I don't understand."

"This killer took Martha Tabram's signet ring and sent it to you, and now he's taken a bracelet of absolutely no monetary worth from the body of Mary Ann Nichols, and also sent it to you," Mycroft said. "Do think the implications of this through, little brother."

"They're trophies," Melissa said to him. "Serial killers like taking trophies from their victims. Something to gloat over, or at least get all misty-eyed about reminiscing over."

"Yes." Mycroft sounded impatient. "But the killer can't get all sentimentally attached to a trophy they no longer have because they _sent it to Sherlock."_

After a silence, it was Lestrade who spoke. "Oh, Christ," he said. "They're not a taunt. They're a _tribute_. Roses to the primadonna."

"Sorry," Sherlock said, annoyed. "To the what?"

"He's right," Mycroft said. "They're sending trophies of the crime to you because they think those trophies are rightfully yours, in spirit. A crime of fascination and perverted love, not taunting and hatred. If I were you, I'd look at killers who have tried to get your attention and failed."

It was suddenly so quiet that all of them could hear Harry singing along to Lana Del Rey in the flat downstairs.

"Melissa and I need to think," Sherlock said, leaping to his feet and going over to rummage through papers on the table, though what he was after was anyone's guess. "Mycroft, John, Lestrade—you can all stay, so long as you only speak when you're going to say something useful."

"I'm sorry?" Mycroft protested. "I don't think—"

"Then don't talk _."_ Sherlock triumphantly produced a black sharpie and uncapped it. "Sit down. No. Get up again. Make tea…"

* * *

In the predictable end, it was John who went to the kitchen and made tea, bringing two cups over at a time and handing them around the little group congregated in the sitting room of 221B Baker Street. Sherlock had pulled the three-seater sofa out from the wall and he and Melissa were standing between it and the wall, examining the crime scene photos, reports and other various papers he'd tacked there.

"First, we look at victimology," he said. "And for the purposes of this exercise, we're excluding Emma Smith."

"Why?" John asked from the armchair behind him.

"Useful, John," Sherlock reminded him without even turning around. "I'll get to that. Our victims are female, caucasian, and broadly speaking, middle-aged; Tabram was thirty-nine and Nichols was forty-three. Both were born in London. Each was heterosexual, separated or divorced, and they had seven children between them, ranging in age from nine to twenty-two. Melissa, you still agree?"

"Yes," she said, pondering Sherlock's mind-maps. "What else? Accommodation?"

"Lodging houses. They both lived in cheap lodging houses, and as far as anyone is aware, each was an alcoholic. Tabram was falling-down drunk on the night she died; when the post-mortem results for Nichols come back, I suspect they'll tell us she was drunk, but much less so. Now: Who commits crimes against this type of woman?"

"White, male, aged between, say, eighteen and forty," Melissa said immediately. "I'd say he's likely under _thirty_ , but that's more an educated guess than profiling."

"Either way," Sherlock said, "This is definitely a young man's crime. A doctor?"

He glanced over at John, who shook his head.

"Our resident medical expert says no," he continued. "Though he's comfortable with knives and possesses a basic anatomical knowledge. If he enjoys the act of slicing people open, he may work at a butcher's or a slaughter-house. Further afield and I'd suggest a farmer, but no: he knows the East End. He's a native or he's lived here a long time, and he blends in."

"Yes," Melissa said. "All this I agree with. Here's something important, Sherlock: he's _not_ a sadist. As far as we know, both women were strangled before being knifed. He did it probably to save on mess or noise, but either way, he doesn't get his jollies from inflicting pain. He wants them neutralised as quickly as possible so he can get stuck into what he's really into: viscera. Guts."

"And here we arrive at the question that will help break this case open," Sherlock said. "Why? _Why_ does he have an obsession with ripping women open? With guts, as you so poetically put it?"

Melissa, for the first time, glanced at Lestrade. Unsure. "I don't know," she said.

Sherlock groaned. "Anyone else?" he demanded to the room at large. "Taking any suggestions at all at this minute. Mycroft, you're a genius, or so you keep reminding everyone. What do you think?"

Mycroft examined the handle of his umbrella, considering this. "Psychosexual, with Freudian overtones," he finally said. "Deep resentment of women, yes, but this is more than that. I don't profess to understand it entirely…"

"John?"

"No idea, sorry," John said. "Except yeah—he really has issues with women. Narrows it down to a few thousand Londoners. Greg, what do you think?"

"When I was working in Bristol," Lestrade said, "I was—stop rolling your eyes, Sherlock, this is relevant. Going back to that stuff about sending roses and trophies in tribute. Like I say, when I was working in Bristol, there was a guy going around the northern suburbs torturing and killing cats. I won't go into the details, but he hated cats and he really went out of his way to make them suffer; it was horrific. But if he'd killed them quickly and relatively painlessly before pulling out their guts to play with, I wouldn't have said he hated cats. I'd have said he was fascinated with them. Loved them, in his own sick way."

"Good point, darling," Melissa said over her shoulder.

"And that's why I don't think Emma Smith can be considered a victim," Sherlock said. "Emma was tortured and left alive. Martha and Mary Ann were killed quickly and left dead. Forget Emma Smith. She was the victim of a roving gang. Leave the case with Bishopsgate Police Station and move on."

"There's something else we haven't considered," Lestrade went on. "Or at least, I haven't heard much out of you two on it. You said before that he blends in and he knows the East End. I agree—Jack Neil told me that area is full of alleys and short-cuts and he could have easily got away, especially if he knew roughly where the patrolling officers were. But he also had to have escaped covered in this woman's blood."

"No arterial spray," John reminded him. "But yeah, he would have still been bloodstained. Wouldn't a witness notice if they saw someone wandering around with blood on their clothes? Judging from the stains on the concrete, Anderson said he was probably kneeling in it."

"Dead end," Sherlock said tersely. "A good coat would cover any obvious bloodstains. Melissa, tell me more about the killer. His housing. His domestic situation."

"Local, like I said," she went on. "He may or may not have a car, but he doesn't need one and he didn't use one in these crimes. In this area, a car is conspicuous and makes for a slower getaway. And both Martha and Mary Ann were left where they were killed, according to the evidence. If he's got a family, which I'd be inclined to say he doesn't, then it's one where nobody questions him when he wanders in at 5am and puts his shoes in the washing machine…"

* * *

For a long time, John made a valiant attempt to follow Sherlock and Melissa's reasoning. But sleep deprivation was kicking in, and his thoughts kept returning to Charlie. Finally he made his excuses and slipped out through the kitchen door and down to flat 221a, where Harry was curled up on the sofa reading _Fifty Shades of Grey._ Charlie was at her feet, playing with a toy cash register that he and Molly had all but banished from the flat for its annoying collection of high-pitched noises.

"Do I even want to know why you're reading that when you're a lesbian?" he asked Harry.

"I needed a good laugh," she said lightly, putting the book on the sofa cushion beside her face-down. "And it's hilarious. Sherlock's still banging on up there?"

"Oh, it's great, with Mycroft pontificating from his throne as well." Charlie had snuggled herself up against his legs, and he reached down to pick her up. "So," he said uncomfortably. "Um. Thanks for all this looking after Charlie you've been doing."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "That sounds suspiciously like you want me to do some more," she said.

"Sorry," he said. "But… _would_ you be able to look after her for an hour or two while I drop in to see Molly? I'll be home by twelve."

"That's what I'm here for," she reminded him. "Of course. But don't you usually take her to see Molly?"

"Yeah," he said, "but I've got a couple of errands to run first, and it's just easier if I don't bring her this time. She's too little to know she's being left behind."

"Okay." Harry glanced regretfully at her book, but John, it seemed, hadn't finished.

"Harry," he said, hushed, as if he was worried about being overheard. "Why are you being so…?"

She raised one eyebrow expectantly. "So what?"

"… Nice?"

With a sigh, she pushed the book away. "John," she said, "do you remember that first time I hit the wall—before Clara. We were both still in Uni. I don't even remember what triggered it."

John did. She'd been fired from a waitressing job, and the woman she'd been seeing at the time, a big blonde Austrian Valkyrie of a woman whose name he couldn't remember, had dumped her on the back of it.

"You were in the middle of exams," Harry went on. "But you dropped everything, rushed around to my flat, and found me in such a shit state that you basically had to spoonfeed me for a couple of days. Remember that?"

"More's the point, how do _you_ remember it?"

"Alcohol's fun like that—anyway, stop trying to change the subject. I might not remember much _about_ it, because I was so off my face, but I'm never going to forget that you did it. You did it over and over, for twenty years, even though there were times when you'd come over and I could see how much you hated me."

"I didn't hate you," he protested. "I hated what you turned into when you drank."

"Same difference." She shrugged. "Drunk me is still me. Anyway. If you could wipe my arse when I was too drunk to, I can do your dishes and make your bed for a week, right?"

"Oh, come on, I never wiped your arse."

"… Okay, so you never did. I'm trying to be sweet, John, stop spoiling it."

* * *

Just after lunch—a nurse had just popped in to take away an unappetising, half-full lunch tray—there was a knock on the open door of Molly's hospital room. She looked up, expecting to see John. Standing there instead was Rachel Vidmar, her therapist.

Molly had never before had much time for therapy or therapists, and resented the fact that she was required to submit to it while a hospital inmate. What was the use, she thought, in confiding secrets to someone who was paid to pretend they cared? Besides, looming in her mind was the idea that as soon as she was declared mentally fit, she was going to be sent home.

A bitter blessing: she would be more comfortable at home, reunited with John and Charlie and Sherlock and everyone she cared about… except her tiny, fragile twins. She still could not walk far without help, and knew that it would be too much for John to take her to and from the hospital every day to see them. It was hard enough expressing milk when Sophie and Louise were in the incubator plugged in beside her hospital bed. It was going to be murder doing it from her bedroom, knowing they were miles away in a hospital. She had known Charlie's personality since well before she had been born, but it had only been in the past few days that she had begun to see little personalities developing and differences between her supposedly-identical twins. Different noises and gestures, different little faces they made.

Still, she and Rachel had an easygoing rapport, even if Rachel did seem more hung up on the psychological impact of her inability to bear further children than she herself was. Molly didn't remember blurting out to John that she'd wanted to have a boy, and nobody had reminded her of it.

"Oh, hi," she said, propping herself up a little further and wincing as the movement tugged on her stitches. "Sorry, I must have forgotten we had a session…"

"No, it's okay," Rachel said sunnily. "Can I sit down?"

"Of course," Molly said, indicating a nearby chair. But as Rachel sank into it, something tripped off in her brain. Since when did Rachel ask if she could sit down? She generally acted as if she had more right to be in the room than her patient did.

"I just popped in to see you because we've been discussing some things," Rachel said, "about your discharge."

"Oh," Molly said, wondering how to sound interested but not eager. "Yes?"

"Dianne—the head of the ward—has raised some concerns about your circumstances when you go home," Rachel said, "and it's part of my job to assess that."

Molly frowned. "My circumstances?" Her circumstances were fine. She had a comfortable home and a supportive family and a solid income.

Was this about John and Sherlock… about the murders? All right, so it probably wasn't every day that a woman came through the hospital whose husband was in the business of solving violent crimes, but…

"Molly," Rachel said. "I need you to know that whatever you say to me here is completely confidential, and that it's my job to make sure you're safe at all times. But the best thing you can do is be completely honest, even when that's difficult. Do you understand?"

Molly felt even more confused, but she nodded.

"Are you ever afraid of your husband?"

Her mouth dropped open. "What?"

"I don't just mean afraid of him physically…"

Molly, in her shock, nearly laughed; the idea of being afraid of John was ridiculous to her. She only bit her tongue under the realisation that laughing might seem like lying.

"The staff have noticed that he's very controlling of you," Rachel was saying, "and we're a bit concerned about that."

"Controlling? What on earth are you talking about?"

"I understand that John is a war veteran, is that right?"

"He doesn't have PTSD," Molly snapped.

Rachel tilted her head slightly to one side. It looked exactly, Molly thought, like someone who was trying to reason with a particularly stupid child. "The information I've been given was that he was diagnosed with it on his return from Afghanistan in 2009," she said. "You didn't know about that?"

How in the _hell…?_ John would never have volunteered that information to hospital staff, and Molly had no idea how they could otherwise have known. "Of course I know about that," she said. "But it was a misdiagnosis."

"Okay." But again, it was the dismissal of someone who was too much of a lunatic to be corrected. "Can I ask, how does John discipline your eldest daughter?"

"He's never laid a hand on her in his life." This was the truth, but Molly thought uncomfortably back to the Christmas Night incident. Heavily pregnant at the time, she'd tried to pick up Charlie during one of her toddler tantrums and been kicked for her trouble. Charlie had then thrown herself onto the kitchen floor to scream some more, and John had scooped her up—and for a second or two, Molly thought he might have been about to swat her across the backside.

But he hadn't. And even if he had, her own father had done that with her once or twice, and he wasn't abusive, either.

"Charlie is too little to really discipline," she tried to explain. "Only eighteen months. We just take dangerous things off her, you know, and take her away from things she shouldn't have. And John's really patient when she cries." She almost laughed again, remembering what had happened after John had picked Charlie up on Christmas Night. He'd put her in her crib, sat down in the rocking chair, and calmly read one of his medical textbooks aloud. She'd become so curious as to what her beloved daddy was saying that she'd stopped screaming for long enough to realise how over-tired she was.

"The staff have seen him—"

And then it clicked: Dianne. Oversized glasses and veneered teeth. "Oh God, is this about what happened the other day?" she asked. "The nurse was in the wrong, Rachel. She wasn't following safe practice, and John walked in with Charlie when I was about to collapse. Of course he was upset about it."

"Does he often become upset when you don't follow his instructions or plans?"

"No! He wasn't upset at _me…"_

"He was certainly upset at Dianne. She said she felt very intimidated."

Molly felt another surge of adrenaline run through her. This was all wrong. This was _ridiculous_. "Rachel, look, I know I'm shy. I know I sometimes agree to things that I shouldn't, probably, but that's never been _John's_ fault—I've been like that since I can remember. Do you know how many times he tells me not to keep saying 'sorry' for things he says aren't my fault?"

"Molly, do you realise you just told me that he polices your language?"

"Out." Molly held one shaking hand up. "I mean it. In all the awful things that have happened to us in the last few weeks, our marriage is the one good thing… the one thing that's good… _go away."_

She sat there, eyes shut, breathing hard; something she hadn't done since childhood, when she'd shut her eyes and count to fifty and trust that when she opened her eyes again, the monster would be gone. As soon as she heard Rachel's retreating footsteps, she opened her eyes and exhaled slowly.

 _I need to call someone…_

She needed to hear a sympathetic human voice, but one that couldn't be John or Sherlock right now. She glanced over at the incubator, where both twins were curled up asleep. Judging from their habits of the last few days, they'd stay that way for roughly ten more minutes.

Getting up, she rifled through her handbag for her mobile phone, then wobbled unsteadily over to the doorway, making more progress than she ever had before, if she'd stopped to consider it. A quick check of the corridor showed that the coast was clear. Holding onto the grab-rail, she made her way up to the waiting area, where phones were allowed to be used, and called Harry's mobile.

"Hey, Molly." Harry sounded breezy, as usual. "Everything okay?'

Molly stopped herself, using every skerrick of willpower she possessed to not blurt out _The nurses think John is abusing me_ down the line. Harry would be furious. John was often useful when he was angry, but his sister was not.

"I was wondering, whenever you're coming in next, if you'd be able to bring me some books from the living room shelf?" she asked instead. This was not entirely an excuse. As the days went on and both the twins' conditions and her own improved, boredom was setting in in earnest.

"Sure. Did John forget this morning?"

"… Sorry?"

"I meant, did he forget to bring them in when he came in to see you this morning."

Molly stopped, puzzling out Harry's meaning. "He didn't come in this morning," she finally said. "He said something to me yesterday about coming in _tonight_ , but I thought he might come straight from a crime scene and he gets frustrated at himself when he forgets things and I have no idea why I'm saying all this…"

"'I probably heard him wrong," Harry said cheerfully, after a short but poignant silence. "You're right, he's been chasing a serial killer for two days, and loving every second of it, so he's dropping all sorts of plans and projects right now. Which books did you want me to bring in, Moll?"


	10. Cherchez L'Homme

There had been one unexpected down side to the _Intent to Kill_ documentary and the associated Silver Fox publicity that had come after it: Lestrade was, at least temporarily, no good for interviewing anyone on the streets of Whitechapel. He was too distinct, too much a fifteen-minute celebrity, though it pained him to leave Donovan, Dyer and Sherlock to head up all the fun of rounding up and interviewing sex workers, pimps, addicts and other down-and-outs in the Whitechapel area.

Instead, Lestrade had taken Halloran to interview the family of Mary Ann Nichols, including her ex-husband, Bill. Twenty-four years in the murder squad had taught Lestrade one thing, if nothing else: When a married or divorced woman died, _cherchez l'homme_.

It really was a pity that Bill Nichols had an unshakeable alibi for the time of his wife's death, in the form of a night shift at Perkins Bacon. Otherwise, he was prime suspect material: an ex with a grudge. He had custody of the younger four of the five children Polly had given him, and they were crowded into one dingy flat in Peckham. The oldest boy, Eddie, had moved out to live with Polly's father in Camberwell. On going to speak with Ted Walker, Lestrade and Halloran found both he and his namesake grandson hated Bill with a passion, and neither would put murder past him.

"God, that's ghastly," Halloran said as they were leaving Walker's flat with reams of information on the life of Polly Nichols, nee Walker. Not much of Ted's information was useful. He and Eddie had left out a lot of unsavoury things about Polly's character out of respect for the dead. They'd left out, for example, something background checks had already told police: she'd had several cleaning jobs in the seven years since her divorce, and lost every single one because she was light-fingered.

"Yeah," Lestrade said, itching to light a cigarette. "More importantly, it's not helpful. Bill Nichols is probably capable of doing it morally, but he physically couldn't have, so that's that."

Or not. It had only been two weeks since he'd failed to solve a crime because of the conviction that the guilty party couldn't have been at the scene at the right time. Before Halloran could say anything more, Lestrade's phone rang. Donovan.

"Hey, Greg," she said, forgetting or not bothering to call him by anything more respectful on work time. "I've got one for you, but unless you leg it down to the Blind Beggar right now, I think I'm going to lose her."

"Leaving now." Lestrade glanced at his watch. The Blind Beggar was just around the corner from where Polly Nichols had been murdered. He'd even driven past it on his way to and from the scene. "Who is she?"

"A woman named Annie Chapman. Asked for you by name. Have you met her?"

Lestrade thought back to the women he'd interviewed after Tabram's murder: two or three who had seen Tabram and Pearly Poll pick up the Grenadiers. 'Annie' wasn't ringing a bell.

"I don't think so," he said. "Pearly Poll might've talked me up to somebody. She won't talk to you?"

"Not a word. Won't talk to Dyer, either, not even when he's being _really_ adorable. But if I thought she was wasting your time, I wouldn't have called."

"It's fine, I believe you. Otherwise, how are things going?"

"Hardly," she said. "You know what I'm about to ask for, don't you?"

"Manpower."

"Womanpower, if you want to be more specific. We're all getting the same vibes off the street girls: they're scared of someone, but they're too scared to tell us anything. Or at least, they won't tell the male officers anything, and I'm barely getting anywhere. I think they think we're the vice squad."

"So you want some nice, sympathetic female officers to talk them 'round. I'll do my best—see who can be pulled off other duties."

"Can we look farther afield than London? It pisses me off that there are officers in, I dunno, some tiny village in Sussex put to chasing people's escaped livestock when we've got this sicko on the loose."

Lestrade thought this one through. "I'll ask Hale," he said. "I don't like my chances, though."

"Because our sicko isn't butchering nice, middle-class white mothers."

"I wasn't going to put it like that, but now you mention it."

"God, that makes me sick."

"I know. Don't get distracted, Donovan. All victims are equal. Let's just get on with it and get this bastard. I'll be there in twenty-five minutes—do whatever you can to stop this Annie Chapman from leaving, will you?"

* * *

Lestrade had driven past the Blind Beggar pub on Whitechapel Road many times since moving to London, though he'd never before had the opportunity to go inside. A true London landmark, especially in the annals of crime: on a cold evening in March 1966, gangster Ronnie Kray had strolled in and shot rival George Cornell right between the eyes in front of the whole bar.

On stepping inside for the first time, Lestrade felt a wave of disappointment. This wasn't the smoke-filled den of iniquity he'd imagined since childhood. This was yuppie paradise. The furnishings were old and well-kept, all dark wood and walls painted a deep shade of emerald; so far, so authentic. But the bar walls were dotted with tasteless Kray memorabilia, along with one tiny plaque mentioning the Blind Beggar's other claim to fame, as the location of William Booth's first sermon, before he'd gone on to found the Salvation Army. The drinks menu was crowded with drinks Lestrade didn't even recognise, and the price of a pint made his eyes water.

Donovan was sitting in one corner with a fair-haired man of about thirty; if he was a police officer, he wasn't in uniform and Lestrade didn't recognise him as a detective. That hair would never pass on duty, anyway. He looked like he'd recently been kidnapped from a beach in Hawaii.

On seeing Lestrade, Donovan dropped off the bar stool and came over, the young man at her heels. "Sir, this is George Hutchinson, he's a centre worker for the Whitechapel Mission," she said, all deference in front of the stranger who might get the wrong idea about how she and Lestrade usually addressed one another. "This is his patch, so I thought he might be a help with some of the women in the area. Mr. Hutchinson, this is Detective Inspector Lestrade, who's heading up the investigation into the murders of Martha Tabram and Mary Ann Nichols."

Lestrade shook his hand. "So, someone's willing to talk?"

"If she's still sober enough to," Donovan said grimly. "I've had to buy her two rounds just to keep her here. Over there." She pointed to a low table in the corner. Looking over, Lestrade saw his witness and groaned inwardly.

Annie Chapman was, it seemed, doing a little better than Martha Tabram or Polly Nichols. Her clothes were shabby, but clean; her greying brown hair was not clean, but it was neat. She was a short, stout woman, barely five foot tall, with clear, intelligent blue eyes. As she gave him a nervous smile in greeting, Lestrade saw that she also had surprisingly good teeth. Still, he had his doubts as to her sobriety and perhaps her mental health.

"What's she like?" he asked Hutchinson.

"A good sort," he said. "Drinks, you know, but she could do worse. Scared to death you're going to arrest her for soliciting."

"She's…"

"With it," Hutchinson smiled. "I know not all of our clients are, but she is. I think she's clever, when she's sober… excuse me…" He pulled his ringing phone out of his pocket and wandered away to answer it.

"Where's Sherlock?" Lestrade asked. "And Dyer, for that matter?"

"Trawling brothels, last I heard, interviewing the staff." She grinned. "Sorry, but it cracks me up even thinking about those two in a house of ill repute."

"Behave, Donovan," Lestrade said, though he was trying not to smile himself. "Actually, don't behave. Buy me a pint and bring it over."

She raised her eyebrows. "Excuse me, Detective Inspector On-Duty?"

"Discretionary," he explained, and it was true; he had the discretion to drink, smoke and do just about anything else on duty to get witnesses to open up, unless it was downright illegal.

"You just want a drink, don't you."

"Maybe. If you have one too, will you lighten up?"

Without waiting to hear the answer, he went over to Annie Chapman, who looked up at him at the last minute. _Sober enough,_ he judged, taking in her expression as quickly as possible. And that was no surprise. People built up a tolerance to alcohol over time. Half of these five-foot-tall women in the East End could probably drink him under the table on a good day.

"Annie…?" he ventured. "I'm Greg Lestrade. Sally said you wanted to talk to me?"

She nodded, and he pulled out a chair and sat down, leaving silence between them. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Donovan at the bar.

Annie glanced in Donovan's direction too, and Lestrade hoped sincerely that his sergeant had been civil. "Yes," Annie said. "Well, it's just that Poll Connelly said…"

"Oh, I bet she said a lot of things about me," he said, chipper and charming. "All good, I assume. As in, I assume she told you I couldn't care less what you do for a living, as long as you're safe."

Annie gave him another weak smile: again, those teeth. Healthy and white. She'd seen a dentist recently. "She said you were looking for whoever killed Emma Turner, and wanted information about anyone who might have done it," she said.

 _Emma Turner_. Known on every register and record as Martha Tabram. Lestrade knew it was better to have Chapman talk while she had the confidence to, but he made a mental note to confirm with her whether 'Annie Chapman' was actually her legal name.

"She was right," he said instead. "And you've got something to tell me."

"Well, it's about time someone did," she said. "Nobody else is game. See, but the problem is, I don't know this fella's name."

"That's okay," he said, though his heart was sinking. "We'll find him anyway. I just need whatever information you've got. Does he go by an alias, or…?"

"We know him as 'Leather Apron'."

"'Leather Apron'?"

She looked patronising. "We don't ask for our clients' _names_ ," she said. "If we've got regulars, we give them nicknames, what we use behind their backs. There's one we call Cat Food Man. Another one we call Bobo the Clown. We call this one Leather Apron 'cause he's usually wearing one… he fixes shoes or blacks boots or something. Or at least he did, 'cause none of us have seen him in a fortnight, and that's a long time for him not to be around."

"So he's a client?"

"Used to be. I wouldn't go with him for all the money in London now. He's a mental case."

"Mental case, like, how? Violent?"

She indicated a scar on her jawline. "Pushed me," she said. "I hit a, you know, one of those things across a gate."

"What did he do that for?" Lestrade, looking back to the bar again, saw that Donovan had bought a couple of pints and was hesitating as to whether to bring them over. He gestured to her and she stalked over and put his glass on the table, then backed off again with her own.

"Don't know," Chapman was saying. "His English isn't great. Something made him angry, and you know, with him, anything could make him angry—you're wearing the wrong colour today, or he doesn't like the look of the sky…"

 _Great_ , Lestrade thought. The only consolation in chasing down someone with a significant mental illness was that they were usually dead easy to catch. But that wasn't the only thing that now had his attention.

"So English isn't his first language," he said. "Do you know what nationality he is?"

"Russian, or Polish, or something," she said. "We think he's Jewish, actually."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, he looks Jewish," she said, matter-of-fact, even though Lestrade hadn't the faintest clue what she meant by this. "And he's had the snip, hasn't he."

"Can you describe the rest of him?"

That got another smile out of her. "Short and nuggety," she said.

"How short?" He glanced at Donovan, who was talking to George Hutchinson again. "Shorter than Sergeant Donovan, do you think?"

Chapman looked. "By about that much," she said, indicating a space between her fingers. Lestrade made a mental note of it, in the old imperial system: about five foot five.

"Short hair, very dark," she said. "And a little goatee. Always has this dark cap on, like he's a fisherman or something… You'd know him if you saw him. It's his face that creeps us all out."

"Why's that?"

"Just the look on it. He's got these small, piggy eyes, and Mr. Lestrade, he's always smiling. It's _horrible_. He was smiling when he shoved me against the gate. He was smiling when he took to Bec Allsopp with a bullwhip."

"A bullwhip?"

"I told you he was mental, now, didn't I?"

"What did your—actually, Annie, I'm going to ask, and feel free to slap me if you think I'm over the line. I've talked to a lot of sex workers this week, and none of you seem to have a pimp. Why's that?"

She laughed. "It's much the same whether you get the shite beaten out of you by a client or a pimp," she said. "And if you're going to take that beating, you prefer it from someone who doesn't take a cut of your money. Ten quid isn't much as it is, without a pimp digging his grotty little hands into it."

Lestrade stopped himself just before he could ask, out of pure curiosity, what services you got from Annie Chapman for ten quid. "Makes sense," he said instead. "But when you get a client like this Leather Apron character, then. Who protects you when he goes off?"

"Nobody," she said. "Unless you protect yourself. I reckon that's why Polly and Emma are dead."

* * *

Half an hour later, John finally arrived at Molly's bedside. He hadn't brought Charlie with him, he explained apologetically. He'd had errands to run and had left her at the flat with Harry.

"Oh, yes, she said." Molly strove to override anything in her voice that sounded like suspicion. The longer she'd been hospitalised, the longer and more elaborate John's stories and explanations of the world outside the hospital doors had become. He'd never before resorted to vague references to 'errands'.

But she was holding her own secret, sort of. Telling John what had happened between her and Rachel was asking for trouble—or at least asking for another blow-up from John. That might be enough for Dianne, who had just come on the afternoon shift, to get the police or social services involved. The idea that anyone could think John was abusing her made Molly angry; the idea that anyone could think he'd hurt his children was too monstrous to contemplate. And the last thing Dianne needed to overhear was John getting testy with her if she pressed him about what errands he'd been running that morning.

He seemed less harrassed than had been usual recently, and though she'd been disappointed that he hadn't brought Charlie, it was undoubtedly better for his stress levels. He had a glossy black file with him, and once he'd greeted her and the twins properly he sat down and pulled a few papers out of it, holding them out to her. "Mary Ann Nichols's post-mortem notes," he said.

"Oh!" She broke into a smile. "I was hoping to have a look. Thank you…"

"Thought it'd warm the cockles of your morbid little heart, my love." He smiled, and she thought it might have been the first genuine smile she'd seen out of him in days that wasn't prompted by his children.

"Were you there for it?" she asked, speed-reading through the abstract.

"Not this time. Shame, though. Sounds like it was… on the exciting side, for a post-mortem."

Molly settled in and began reading the post-mortem report in earnest, half-listening to John whispering a charming one-sided conversation with Sophie and Louise in the incubator beside his chair.

The dead woman's throat had been slashed twice, from ear to ear, all the way down to the spinal column and penetrating the vertebrae. Her abdomen had been laid open from just below the sternum to the pubic mound, but nothing in the notes indicated any of her organs had been removed. Pondering those details, she forced herself to put all thoughts of her recent hysterectomy out of her mind. It had been done under a general anaesthetic, and she had no memory of what had happened between some fuzzy, barely-conscious moments while they were still in their room at Arndale Hall and waking up in intensive care after it was all over. But reading of the fate of Mary Ann Nichols after death caused a sympathetic twinge deep within her that hurt.

"Throat cut from left to right," she said finally, looking up at John. "He's left-handed, then?"

John shrugged. "You're the expert," he said.

She went back to her notes, backing up a paragraph or two and rereading. "Mmm. It's hard to tell. Of course, if he cut her throat from behind he's almost certainly right-handed. That'd be sensible. He wouldn't want to get blood all over himself. But the notes say there was no blood on the front of her dress either?"

"None that I saw," John said, stroking Sophie's arm with one finger. "Her dress was black, but still…"

"It says here that most of the blood, and there wasn't much of it, soaked the _back_ of her dress," she said. "Which is consistent with her lying down on the pavement at the time her throat was cut."

"So, strangled?"

"If I had to testify it in court, I'd say the injuries are consistent with it. Face discoloured. And they found a laceration on her tongue consistent with her having bitten it, which you would if you were being manually strangled… are you okay?"

John had drawn his hand out of the incubator and scrubbed it over his face. "Yeah," he said, taking a deep breath. "Just tired."

"You look terrible—no, I mean, you look tired. Charlie's not sleeping?"

"She has to be, but I hardly ever catch her at it. Are you completely sure she doesn't have an 'off' button?"

Molly reached over and squeezed his hand. "Come on," she said. "Come up here with me."

"On the bed? You're sure it won't…"

"It's fine. There's lots of room, and the stitches have nearly healed, anyway."

Molly entirely expected John to refuse her, either on the grounds that he'd somehow hurt her or that it wasn't the time or the place to be silly. Instead, he took his shoes off and climbed up onto the mattress beside her, cupping her shoulder with one hand and burying his face in her neck.

"I love you," he murmured. "I know I keep forgetting to tell you, but you know, right?"

She lifted her head, but he was half-asleep already and she could read nothing from his expression.

Of course he loved her. She'd always known how hard it was for him to say it, but she had never doubted it.

 _But why say it now?_

She drew him closer and shut her eyes—it had been a rough night for her, too. A few seconds later, she heard the familiar clop of low-heeled, regulation shoes outside the door. They stopped, and she sensed a shadow fall across the doorway. Then the footsteps moved off down the corridor and the shadow was gone.


	11. The Storm Builds

"Is that all you wanted me for?" Annie asked Lestrade, standing up and putting on a grey cardigan that reeked of damp and mothballs. "I really dunno if I can tell you anything more."

"No, that's fine for now," Lestrade said, glancing over his shoulder at Donovan. She was sitting at the bar with her pint, seeing off George Hutchinson, who was waving to her from the doorway. "Where are you off to now? Or should I ask no questions and be told no lies?"

"Something like that."

"Okay." Lestrade had promised Annie that he didn't care what she did for a living, and now he had to stick to it: if word got around that the Met detectives investigating Tabram and Nichols's murders were getting judgmental about street prostitution, they could kiss goodbye any chance of decent witnesses contacting them in the future. "But you've got somewhere to sleep tonight, right? Money for a bed?"

"Oh, I should get on all right," she said. "I always do."

Lestrade exchanged a look with Donovan, who had seen Annie preparing to leave and wandered into earshot. "The thing is," he said, "My duty's to protect and serve. Which means I can't really wave you off if I don't think you've got somewhere safe to go."

"St Andrews' Lodging House," she said, pulling her hair out from under her collar. "Dorset Street. I don't turn tricks for booze or fun, Mr. Lestrade. Every now and again, and just enough to get by. I didn't do it at all until my husband died."

This was beginning to form quite a pattern. Who knew so many of London's street walkers were middle-aged women who'd had the spouse-and-two-kids and lost them somehow? Lestrade had never worked in Vice and had no more knowledge of its workings than someone outside the police force, but he did have a friend who'd retired the year before after spending the last fourteen years of his career as a DCI there. Perhaps it was worth giving Keith a call and investigating further…

"Okay," he said. "Stay safe. You've got my number."

She nodded, though she looked like she was trying to humour him and he had grave doubts as to whether she'd call him for anything short of being stabbed to death at that very moment. Perhaps he'd better have given her Donovan's number? But then, Donovan wasn't known for being approachable. Lestrade watched from the doorway of the Blind Beggar as Annie made her way up Whitechapel Road toward Brady Street. He was musing on the case and only remembered Donovan was still there and had gone back to the bar for her pint when he heard her swear.

"What?" he hurried over. She was holding her phone, and swung her legs out from the bar, as if preparing for action.

"Daily Mail online." She gave him the phone. "They've named Leather Apron: according to their sources, he's some bloke called Jack Pizer. Been in and out of the system for years for assaults, public disturbances, that kind of thing. Name ring a bell?"

"No. But then, it wouldn't, would it? Never worked in the area."

"Greg, that article went up seventeen minutes ago, when you were still over there talking to Annie. So how the f—"

"The women you said were too scared to talk to you. Most of them are probably a couple of quid away from being homeless, or desperate for a fix, or both," Lestrade said, still scanning the article. He knew a number of journalists he relied on when it came to cases; the press could, when used right, help the police rather than hinder them. But he knew nobody from the Daily Mail. "I bet some bastard bottom-feeder of a journalist offered one of them a payment she couldn't refuse."

Donovan raised one eyebrow. "You think I should have done the same?"

"I know what a bribe is, Donovan," he said, irritated. If any of his detectives offered a witness one in exchange for information, it would be the end of their career, and possibly even send them to prison. He also knew that half the information Sherlock dredged up on a case came from his free-and-easy use of bribery. He'd always looked the other way: if Sherlock Holmes, a civilian, wanted to bribe people, that was his business. But this wasn't Sherlock's work. Someone had beaten him to the punch. "So they've gone and named him." He pulled one hand over his chin. "Helpful in the short term, maybe, but that's serious, for Pizer and for us."

"Libel."

"I'm thinking more about his safety." He gave the phone back to her. "Start calling everyone in, unless they're doing something crucial. Meeting at headquarters in an hour."

* * *

"Mrs. Watson…?"

Molly stirred and opened her eyes—and for a good three or four seconds, had no idea where she was. Then she remembered: she was in hospital, she'd dozed off, and John was still fast asleep on the bed beside her. Her doctor, a fiftyish woman she knew as Dr. Creighton, was standing at the edge of the bed, looking amused.

"Oh," Molly said, pulling herself upright but trying not to wake John. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep…" She checked on the twins. Sophie's eyes were open a little and Louise was waving her tiny hands around, but neither of them cried much, even when they were just waking. John was apt to comment that it made a refreshing change from Charlie, but she knew this for what it was: a cover for worry.

"It looks like you could do with a kip," Dr. Creighton said. "I'm sorry to wake you. Plenty of rest is the best thing you could be doing with yourself at this stage. Wouldn't hurt the new dad either, I dare say."

Clearly, Molly thought with a little note of triumph, _she_ didn't see John as a danger to anybody. By this time John had woken too, and was scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"How are you feeling?" Dr. Creighton asked her.

"Good," she replied, before she remembered that if anything, she was supposed to be playing down her health. Too late.

"Okay." Creighton pulled Molly's medical chart from its slot at the foot of the bed. "I just want to have another look at the wound site, Molly, and take your stats. If everything's normal, you'll be able to go home around lunchtime tomorrow."

Molly glanced at John before she could help herself. _Oh my God, he's going to…_

But to her surprise, John looked composed, even if he hadn't quite made it the whole way to pleased. "Okay," he said. "Yeah, good. We'll have follow-up at home, though, right?"

"A week of daily visits from the community nurse, and as much counselling as they'll let me prescribe."

Molly stopped herself from making a face. She could do very well without the counselling sessions, thank you very much. She saw movement in the crib out of the corner of her eye and slipped one hand in to comfort Louise, who sounded like she was trying to cry after all. And that made two of them. She swallowed a lump in her throat.

"What about the twins?" she made herself ask calmly. Sophie and Louise were being treated under a different doctor, a Dr. Hussein, and she knew Creighton couldn't possibly give her an accurate answer, but anything was better than nothing.

Dr. Creighton smiled. "You know I'd hate to give you an answer and have Dr. Hussein tell you something different," she said. "I'm an Ob-gyn, not a paediatrician. But both your girls seem to be coming along: putting on weight, no major complications except that they were so premature. Sophie might be out in a week or two, Louise perhaps a week or two more."

Molly felt it like a blow to the chest, even though she hadn't expected any other answer. A week or two. _A week or two._ Which meant that if Louise's progress continued to be more sluggish than her sister's, she mightn't be able to take her home for a _month_. Through sheer force of will, she managed to hold it together until both consultation and examination were through and Dr. Creighton had left, but only just.

"Hey," she heard John say, and felt his hand on her shoulder. She couldn't bring herself to look up at him.

"Sorry," she said. "No, I really am sorry this time. I said I wouldn't get upset. I knew this was going to happen…"

"We both did, Lolly. There's nothing we can really do about it, so we're just going to have to get through it, right? Anyway, just think how thrilled the cats will be to get you back."

Molly snorted with laughter at this unexpected conclusion, even though she was still crying. John pulled a couple of tissues from the box on her bedside table and handed them to her.

"You'll visit the girls?" she begged. "Every day?"

"Molly, of _course_." He squeezed her hands. "Of course. For hours and hours. I'll sit here and watch them sleep if it'll help."

John would, too, and she knew it. Right in the middle of a case. Being everywhere for everybody; putting thirty-six hours into a single day. Was it a matter now of if John would break, or when?

* * *

Maxine, proprietoress of the Blue Dolphin, was not what Dyer expected the madam of a brothel to be like. With her ironed blonde hair, extravagant purple nails and smart black-and-white power skirt-suit, she reminded him of Hayley's mother. Even more bafflingly, she and Sherlock Holmes were on a first-name basis with each other.

"None of your girls have reported any suspicious customers?" he asked her.

"Most of them are suspicious, Sherlock." She was standing behind the reception desk, going through her client lists, though she didn't seem to be looking very urgently. Without much else to occupy him—the place was closed, and nobody else seemed to be about—Dyer had been looking at the bright orange wall behind her and trying not to zone out completely.

Sherlock pulled a face. "You know what I mean," he said. "Come on, we're not here out of idle curiosity. Someone is out there, and he's dangerous."

"I heard he's targeting street girls, not our staff."

"He's targeting whoever happens to be around when he wants to kill. More than that, he's getting increasingly confident. Mary Ann Nichols was attacked in a public street. It may not be long before he's going on a knife attack in here."

She sighed and took a few steps over to the open doorway on her left, shouting through it: "Miri!"

After being called a second time, a girl with a short shock of peroxide-blonde hair appeared. Dyer was surprised to find she was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and then surprised that he felt surprised. The Blue Dolphin wasn't open. Very likely she lived on the premises.

"This is a friend of mine, Sherlock Holmes," Maxine said. "And this young fella's from Scotland Yard."

Miri looked them both over in good-natured surprise. "What's this about?" she asked, tugging at one well-pierced ear.

"That woman who got killed in Buck's Row. They think some weirdo's picking off sex workers, want to know if he's been round here. Tell them about the Chicken Man."

Dyer looked at Sherlock. "The Chicken Man?"

"Oh, him. He came in a week and a half ago," Miri said. "With a chicken. A _live_ one. Just under his arm, like. He wanted me to take my clothes off and cut its head off with a knife while he got himself off."

"What the hell…?" Dyer gaped.

"That's pretty much what I said," Miri agreed. "I told him to bugger off, of course. I don't do that kind of thing. He said his name was Ron, but I bet it wasn't. White guy, about forty, fat, had a grey combover. I'd know him if I saw him again. Did he kill that other woman?"

"That's all, Miri," Maxine said. Her tone was placid, but Miri immediately dropped her chin and, after another glance between Sherlock and Dyer, disappeared through the doorway again.

Dyer managed to not look at Sherlock. Maxine had her girls well trained. Perhaps too well trained.

"No," Sherlock said, disappointed. "That's not him."

"Isn't it…?" Dyer spoke up timidly. "Ticks all the boxes. Mental and violent toward prosti- er, sex workers," he corrected himself, catching Maxine's eye. He'd been educated at another establishment, just that morning, that 'prostitute' was a perjorative term, and it wasn't done to use it anywhere except the squad room or the unmarked car.

"No, he _doesn't_ tick all the boxes," Sherlock said. "Wrong psychological profile entirely. Our man is repressed and he's cunning. He'd never do something so bizarre and perverted in such an open manner, and then resort to slitting throats in the dark." He turned to Maxine. "That's all—no, actually, that's not all. That Miri of yours is underage."

"Seriously?"

"Sixteen. Seventeen at the most, but I expect you already know that. She's from the north-west suburbs, judging by her accent. Her father is a clergyman. I suggest you send her home to him before the actual vice squad arrive… oh, what now?" he demanded in despair as his phone started to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked it, then looked at Dyer and walked him to the further edge of the room. Taking the hint, Maxine left through the same doorway Miri had.

"What's going on?" Dyer asked over the trill of the ringing phone.

"Lestrade." Sherlock flicked the call onto speakerphone and held the phone out between them. "Hello?"

"Hey, Sherlock. Getting anywhere?"

"Not in the way I'd intended, no. Dyer's here with me. You're on speakerphone."

"Nice to hear neither of you are too distracted. Listen, have you ever heard of a character known as 'Leather Apron'? Real name Jack Pizer. Hangs around the streets of Whitechapel bothering sex workers, or so I'm hearing."

Sherlock sucked in a breath. "Yes," he said. "I know Pizer. He lives rough, but has family in the area. And he's not your man."

"Go on, I'm curious to hear why not."

"You'd know it yourself, if you took the time to think it through properly. He's mentally ill."

"Had a feeling you were going to say that. With what?"

"I don't think he's ever had a real diagnosis. He self-medicates with heroin. A junkie, if you'd like to call it that. Between those two things, Pizer hasn't the sense not to walk into traffic, let alone slip past three patrolling police officers."

"But he has a history of violence?"

"Yes. He's been in and out of the lockup in the nine years I've known him. He doesn't understand the concept of a restraining order, so these are really only temporary fixes. He's violent with women, and attacked one woman with a bullwhip last March. He's clever. He's also subject to fits of paranoia and delusion. But we're looking for someone who commits acts of shocking violence _while in a rational state."_

"Sherlock, it's not that I don't believe you. But two women have been murdered, and I've just got a plausible tip-off. You know I can't ignore that. I have to find him and bring him in. Do you know where he is?"

A long pause. "No way to know where he is at any given time," Sherlock said. "But all right; I'll play. Let _me_ find Pizer and bring him to you."

Lestrade fought back a yawn. It was now the twenty-first hour of his shift. "Fine," he said. "But you don't have long before my superiors are going to be chasing me for a result."

"I'll go now."

"What about John?"

"He's at the hospital. Let him stay there. I'll text him if and when I need him."

* * *

"Sorry… sorry," John called out as he opened the door of 221a. Charlie was already clinging to his legs, and he reached down and picked her up, then wandered into the living room in search of Harry. He found her cross-legged on the sofa, surfing Facebook on her laptop. "Harry, hi, sorry I'm late. Had a lot to sort out, and I just left the hospital. Molly's being discharged tomorrow."

She looked up at him. "Tomorrow? Did you hit the roof?"

"I was thinking about it. She's really not well enough to be released, so I don't know what Dr. Creighton's thinking. But it's not like she's going to keep her in any longer if I insist on it." He took one of Charlie's hands and gave it an absent-minded kiss. "Um. So you're… uh. What are your plans?"

"My plans are to ask Molly when she comes home if she wants me to stay on and help with Charlie." Harry pushed the laptop aside. "And I guess I should ask Sherlock if I'm allowed to continue squatting in his real estate."

John couldn't imagine Molly telling Harry to go back home under the circumstances. But then, the prospect of keeping Harry around wasn't as horrible as it had seemed on the afternoon she'd moved in.

"You want some lunch?" she asked, stretching and yawning. She was dressed down in tracks and a jumper, in a way that spelled out that she had no intention of leaving the flat that day. "Charlie and I have eaten, but I could chuck together a sandwich for you."

"It's fine," John said. "Got something on the way home."

She was looking hard at him, and for a moment he thought she was about to push it. Then she drew her knees up to her chest, tweaked her bare toes, and said, "Where were you earlier?"

"Earlier when?"

"This morning, if you can cast your sleep-deprived mind back that far. You said you were at the hospital visiting Molly, but you didn't go until later. What was all that about?"

"Not the conspiracy theory you're making it into," John said. "I was at the solicitor's office, changing my will. He kept me waiting longer than I thought, and I ran out of time."

"Changing your _will?"_

"Well, updating it, anyway. Got three kids now." Then, lightly, "And while I was there, just for fun, I took your bequests and left them to Mycroft Holmes instead."

"You know, it actually wouldn't surprise me if you did." Harry spoke lightly, but her expression was more serious. "John," she said. "One of the fun things about being both a woman _and_ a twin is, you get a sixth sense for when your twin might not be telling you the whole truth—"

 _"Leave it."_ John felt Charlie flinch and bury her face in his neck.

 _Excellent parenting there, John._ He smoothed down and kissed Charlie's hair, then took a breath to compose himself. "Leave it," he said again in a much more conversational voice. "This is exactly why I didn't want you to move in in the first place."

Harry raised one eyebrow. "You want me to leave?"

Another breath. Another. "No," he said. "Molly's… not good, Harry. She'll need help even getting around the flat, and I'll still need help with Charlie. I can't do it all on my own."

"No doubt you can't, but you have other options," she said icily, turning back to her laptop. "You could, perhaps, _pay_ someone who won't interfere in your business."

"Would it be too much to ask that _you_ don't interfere in my business?" John fumbled for his wallet and let it fall to the floor as he yanked a small card out of it, then handed it to her. "Gilton and Nash solicitors," he said. "St. Bride Street. I was there this morning. Call and ask them."

"They wouldn't tell me whether they'd seen you or not, John. Confidentiality laws, and all that."

"Then you might have to do something new and believe me. I was there this morning, changing my will, because I'm the new and improved John Watson, now with 200% more daughters. That's it. That's all. No mystery."


	12. God Help

An hour later, Lestrade came into the overheated, crowded incident room at New Scotland Yard that had been set up to investigate the murders of Martha Tabram and Mary Ann Nichols. There were a good twenty detectives already in the room, including general duties officers, along with the usuals: Donovan, Dyer, Halloran, Patel, Castelli, and the newest member of his team, a Constable Susannah Cowley. He ignored the buzz of various competing conversations around him as he set up a digital projector; eavesdropping came in handy more often than not, but this time, at least, nothing useful came through. Finally, he clapped his hands.

"Okay," he said as the buzz died down. "First things first: Daily Mail. Went up about an hour and a half ago." He turned the projector on and a copy of the article blazed up on the far wall, the headline letters a good half-foot high.

Silence fell.

"Yes, that's _exactly_ what it looks like," Lestrade said, without any hint of amusement. "The Daily Mail got the jump on us in naming the guy we're looking for, and I'm not worried right now about looking like an idiot…" _Though I might tomorrow,_ he thought. That would be the work of tomorrow's papers: castigating the lead investigating officer as a moron who couldn't find his own arse with a compass and a map. He'd been through that so many times, though, that he was largely immune to it. Eleven years of knowing Sherlock hadn't hurt in developing a thick skin. "From what I'm hearing from more reputable sources, this guy isn't exactly a saint. But he's now a hunted man. We've got people out looking for him, and I'll just be grateful if we can find him before he skips the country."

"I don't get it. Just what were the Daily Mail's sources?" Dyer asked.

Lestrade gave him an icy look. Interruptions were welcome at a crime scene, but not during a briefing. "Since when do they need sources? I'm convinced half of what they print as news is completely made up. But I'll say this," he said. "I _believe_ that info came from one of the women Pizer's been harassing. If I find out anyone in this team had knowledge of it and went to the papers before coming to me, God help them."

He fiddled with the projector again, appreciating the disciplined silence that had fallen over the detectives in front of him. He rarely had to bring out the stick with his subordinates, but they knew it when they saw it. Finally, he cleared his throat.

"Okay," he said, turning the projector off. "I need to know if anyone else has any plausible leads."

In they came, in one indiscriminate flood, and few of them were plausible. Lestrade hung onto his patience as he listened to tales of mysterious men walking around the East End on Saturday night, armed with carving knives and daggers, and in one case, a Samurai sword. All useless. Tabram had been attacked with a pen-knife. The jury was still out on the weapon that had been used to kill and disembowel Mary Ann Nichols, but odds were that it wasn't a butcher's knife with a blade as long as a man's arm. It never ceased to amaze him, during a public request for information, how many people claimed to have seen things that had never happened. Things that were _impossible_. He was at the point of chewing out Halloran for even putting forward one of the more outlandish 'sightings' when his mobile phone rang. After a nod to Donovan to carry on the briefing in his absence, he left the incident room and answered the phone in the corridor. "Yeah?"

"Lestrade? It's Detective Aiken, I'm on front desk this afternoon. A woman's just come in asking to see you, sir, and she's in a bloody mess."

Lestrade's heart jackhammered in his throat. He and Detective Aiken didn't know one another; 'a woman' could be anyone, including Hayley, Mel, his mother or one of his sisters. _A bloody mess_ could likewise mean anything. He suddenly remembered the day, nine years before, when his sister Lorraine had arrived at the front desk in tears to tell him their father had just died of a massive heart attack. "How do you mean?" he asked. "And who is she, exactly?"

"Gave her name as Poll. Staggered in looking like she's been beaten up, and we've also got a pissed off cabbie in here who says he won't leave until she pays for the damage to his cab. Ambulance is on the way, but she keeps asking to talk to you."

 _Ambulance?_ "I'll be right down," he said, gesturing wildly to Donovan through the glass window of the incident room. "I need to talk to her, so try to keep her conscious."

* * *

Sherlock had told Lestrade that he'd known Jack Pizer for nine years. Lestrade had had no reason to question it, but it was a lie.

He'd known Pizer for closer to twenty-four years, having met him during circumstances he didn't like to remember: under Westminster Bridge during a night so bleak he'd nearly dropped himself into the Thames. He'd gone home from school for the Christmas holidays, at a time when 'home' was a flat Mycroft then had in Kensington. On Christmas night, he'd… well, in truth, he still wasn't certain of what he had or hadn't done. Only that the usual brotherly bitterness had turned into an argument, and somewhere in it, he'd hit Mycroft. Then he'd fled the flat and somehow ended up miles away, curled up on a concrete block under one of the bridge pylons. He'd lain there in the darkness for God only knew how long—Sherlock didn't—until he'd been stirred out of near-hypothermia by Pizer, bearing a cigarette lighter and his own musty, threadbare coat: _You OK? Hey, boy, you OK?_

And then Sherlock had said something that still made him cringe, all these years later. _Please help me. I don't know where I am._

The knowledge that he'd been at Westminster Bridge had come later; Sherlock had no recollection at all of where he'd gone after Pizer had taken him under his wing. Some grubby little flat where he'd given him a blanket that smelled like damp and a cup of tea that tasted vaguely like chlorine. He'd slept it off, and it had been light when Mycroft had finally shown up to take him home. To date, it had been the most awkward half an hour he and Mycroft had ever spent sitting next to one another.

 _I'm not angry at you, Sherlock. I'm just glad you're all right._

Sherlock still felt the sting of Mycroft's pity, and still didn't know why he'd have preferred him to be furious at him, to hit him back, to disown him. Instead, Mycroft had insisted they continue with the holidays as usual, and they had, partly because Sherlock didn't have the energy for another fight. Pizer had been easy to find at the end of the holiday period to reluctantly thank for his help. He'd found Sherlock that night sleeping on his patch.

It had taken Sherlock longer than usual to discover the extent of Jack Pizer's mental health issues; or, more likely, it had taken the intervening years to bring those issues out in full. The two were never going to be friends in the same way Sherlock was friends with John, or even with Lestrade. Pizer was too hard-edged, too unpredictable. And, as Sherlock discovered, he hit women. It was one thing to hit your brother, or even your best friend. It was another to hit a woman.

In any case, it had been all of two years since he'd last had any contact with Jack Pizer, but he had little trouble finding the flat of his brother, in an out-of-the-way street in Bedford Park. The man who opened the door to him was very like Jack: middle-aged and stalwart, with hair running closer to grey than black.

 _"Cześć. Nazywam się Sherlock Holmes,"_ Sherlock faltered. _"Szukam Janek. Ma klopoty. Chcę mu pomóc.."_

"I speak English," the man said in a heavy accent.

"Oh, thank God for that." Sherlock exhaled and held out his hand. "Sherlock Holmes," he repeated. "I'm looking for Jack. He's got himself into a bit of trouble. I want to help him."

The man held out his hand. "I'm Dawid," he said. "His brother. I'm glad you're here. He wanted to call you, but didn't know how."

"So he _is_ here?"

"Upstairs." Dawid nodded toward the staircase. "But I don't think his English is well today."

Of course, this made sense. During any mental upheaval, recently learned knowledge fell away before deep-seated skills, like one's birth language. "My Polish could use some work," Sherlock admitted. "Will you translate?"

Dawid nodded. "Come up."

Sherlock followed Dawid up a precariously narrow set of stairs and onto a landing so claustrophobic that he instinctively ducked his head. They walked past one door—clearly a bathroom—before Dawid knocked on the next one along from the top of the stairs.

 _"Janie,"_ he called through the closed door. _"Twój przyjaciel Sherlock Holmes przyszedł do ciebie. Otworzysz drzwi?"_

This was greeted by such a long silence that Sherlock wondered if the man was alive in there. Dawid knocked again, then opened it without further permission, revealing a similarly small and narrow room, with a ceiling that sloped down almost to the floor on one side and a single narrow window, letting in barely enough light to see the lilac pattern on the wallpaper. Nobody was in sight, but there was a man-sized lump under the duvet on the double bed that dominated the room. Sherlock marched over and pulled it up, revealing Jack Pizer crouched double over, forehead on the mattress. He was dressed only in a pair of Y-fronts, and stank of sweat.

 _"Sherlock, pomóż mi,"_ he stammered into the bedclothes, and though Sherlock didn't understand his words, there was no mistaking his tone. _"Wsadzą mnie do więzienia! Jestem niewinny. Nikogo nie zabiłem! Boję się! Pomóż mi!"_

"You don't need to translate that," Sherlock said, glancing at Dawid. "I get the impression he's innocent of murder and wants me to help him."

"Will you?"

"Tell him to come with me to Inspector Lestrade. Tell him Lestrade is a good man who will listen to me. He'll be locked up, but only temporarily, and it will be to protect him and give him a chance to clear his name."

All the while Sherlock had been speaking, Dawid had been translating at a rate of knots, with the precision of a career interpreter. Jack looked baffled, first at his brother, then at Sherlock.

 _"Jak mam udowodnić, że jestem niewinny,"_ he said, _"kiedy wszyscy wiedzą kim jestem?"_

"He asks how he can prove he's innocent," Dawid said, "when everyone knows what he is."

Sherlock knelt on the mattress beside Jack and pulled at his shoulder until he sat up and looked at him. "Because _I_ know what you are," he said. "And don't mistake me on that, Jack. You'll answer to Lestrade and to the law for the things you've done. But I won't allow you to be taken down by the things you haven't done. You hit women. You don't murder them."

He waited patiently for Dawid to translate all this. Jack put his head in his hands again.

 _"Tej nocy, kiedy zginęła Martha Tabram,"_ he said, _"o drugiej, wróciłem do domu w zakrwawionym płaszczu. Nie wiem, czemu."_

"He says the other night, before the Tabram woman died, he came home with blood on his coat. He doesn't know how it got there."

"What night?" Sherlock asked. "Friday? Saturday?"

 _"Której nocy, Janie?"_

 _"W piątek."_

"He says Friday night," Dawid reported.

"Nobody was murdered on Friday night. That blood definitely didn't come from Martha Tabram, who was alive and well until about two in the morning on Sunday. He's certain the blood isn't his own?"

Dawid translated. Jack shook his head, then ducked his face into the duvet to stifle a frustrated wail.

"Then we need to find out who it does belong to, so we can put these rumours to rest," Sherlock said, ignoring this. "Where is the coat?"

After another exchange with his brother, Dawid opened the wardrobe door and bent down to retrieve a bloodstained, stinking mass of wool that on a good day must have been a greyish blue.

"We need to take this with us," Sherlock said, reaching out to take it. "Give your brother a cup of strong coffee and something to eat before we go. I doubt he'll get anything at Scotland Yard tonight."

* * *

Sherlock hadn't called.

John had expected him to, at some point, after receiving the terse text: _Finding Jack Pizer. Might be some time. Will call if convenient - S._ But the afternoon had become evening, and the phone had stayed silent. John dispiritedly went through the motions of feeding and bathing Charlie. He was just lifting her out of the bath when his mobile phone rang.

"Want me to answer that?" Harry called from the kitchen. She was doing something that looked like baking, and which had spread flour from one wall to the other. John had turned a blind eye to it. Both of them liked a neat and organised living space, so he had no fear that she'd eventually clean after herself. And if there was something both he and Molly would appreciate tomorrow, it was cake.

"Who is it?" he called back. "Check first."

"… Mycroft, according to the caller ID."

He rolled his eyes. "Kill it."

The phone fell silent, but only for a few seconds before it rang again. He heard Harry swear at it before cutting the ringtone short a second time. He'd just wrestled the protesting Charlie into her pyjamas and was running a comb through her wet hair when the mobile rang again, and Harry came to the doorway with it in her hand.

"You're sure you want to ignore him?" she asked. "He might firebomb the flat in retaliation."

John swiped Charlie's wet hair a little too vigorously, and she yelped. "Oh, for God's sake," he said, handing Harry the comb. "Here, we'll swap."

"My pleasure." She gave him the phone, and he went out into the kitchen to answer it.

"Mycroft, come on," he said down the line. "This is really, really not the day for it."

"I quite agree," Mycroft said. "But this can't be delayed. There's a car out front for you."

"Of course there is." John rolled his eyes and hung up on him, then took a deep breath. "Going to the Diogenes Club, apparently," he called to Harry, fetching his jacket. "Can you put Charlie to bed for me, Harry? I shouldn't be too long."

As usual, the cab driver who picked John up was not of a conversational turn, but then, that suited John. There was no mystery about where he was being taken, right down to the particular armchair of the particular room in the Diogenes Club. It was now getting late, but there were still a few older gentleman taking advantage of the blazing fireplaces and cosy armchairs in the antechamber. John was too tired—and by now, too curious—to contemplate breaking the tranquility on this particular night. He found Mycroft in his usual high-backed armchair, legs crossed, drink at his elbow, a stack of papers on the coffee table in front of him.

"I was serious about this not being a good night for it," John said, sitting down without being asked, the opening gambit of his and Mycroft's everlasting game of Passive-Aggressive Chess.

"So was I." Mycroft sounded… distracted? That was odd. For someone who had so much on his mind all the time, Mycroft rarely gave the impression that he was having trouble focusing. "Are you aware that Sherlock didn't go to his therapy appointment yesterday?" he asked, without looking up from the papers in front of him.

"Yeah." John said, settling into the chair. "He was with me. We were busy tracking down a serial killer."

"I contacted Lestrade; he said he had no idea Sherlock had missed the appointment, and he was disappointed. If Lestrade would prefer Sherlock to—"

"Yeah, I've already said that to him. He didn't go because he was busy. I'll remind him to go the next time. Did you seriously drag me here to tick me off because your brother missed a therapy appointment?"

Mycroft handed John the top piece of paper. John took it without looking at it. "What's this?" he asked.

"Read it."

"Sure. After you tell me what I'm going to be looking at."

"Calm down; I'm not trying to get you to read Sherlock's therapy notes again. It's an email I received from Christabel Mohler this afternoon."

 _Christabel Mohler._ Obviously Mycroft hadn't thawed out one whit toward his half-sister, if he was still referring to her by her full name. Even more quaint: the man _printed_ _emails_ , something John hadn't heard of anyone doing since about 2001.

"Mycroft, I don't know if you've noticed, but I've got things going on in my own life just at the moment," he said.

"Yes, I heard Molly is going to be released tomorrow morning."

"How did y—"

"I trust all is in order for her to come home?"

"Without knowing what you mean by that, I'll say yes," John said.

"Splendid. Let's return to the issue at hand. It's not good news, I'm afraid. My—er, our father's been hospitalised in the United States."

John, scanning the paper in his hand, looked up at this unforeseen punchline. "Hospitalised? With what?"

Mycroft shrugged. "Christabel says it's his heart, but frankly, the man is eighty-three years old."

"Yeah." John looked thoughtful. "It does tend to happen that way. Hearts and other things only work for a limited length of time."

"And we all seem to be in agreeance that his time is nearly up." Mycroft rested his chin on his hands in a gesture that he didn't know betrayed his inner child. "We need to tell Sherlock," he said.

"Why?" John heard the sting in his voice and flinched. He put the paper down.

"Let me ask you a personal question, John…"

"You're going to ask it, whether I let you or not, aren't you?"

"Your own father," Mycroft said, ignoring this. "I'm told you weren't advised of his final illness until after his death."

John had seen this coming for a good half a minute, and took it calmly. "The hospital in Chelmsford had trouble finding Harry and me," he said. "He was only in for a day before the end."

That _was_ what he'd been led to believe, but John had always suspected there was more to the story. Talking the incident over on the day he and Molly had brought newborn Charlie home from the hospital, Harry had mentioned it as well. _I don't understand why we weren't told,_ she'd said. _Neither of us should have been so hard to find._

Perhaps not. But they had been, and that had been that.

"If you had been alerted earlier that he was dying," Mycroft was saying, "would you have gone in and spoken with him before he passed?"

Another question John had seen coming. "I don't know," he said. "I don't think so. Molly was about to have Charlie."

"But you then rushed off to his funeral, leaving Molly in London under the same circumstances."

John cut off the spiteful impulse to remind Mycroft—if he'd ever known it—that as a result, Sherlock had nearly had to deliver Charlie in the back of a taxi. "What's your point, Mycroft? I don't know why you keep dragging me into this, acting like we're having a discussion when you're playing games and in the end it's going to be one of your orders anyway. You know how I feel about this. Don't do it to your brother. He deserves better." He paused. "You both deserve better."

Mycroft made a noble attempt at looking confused. "I'm sorry…?"

"Well, I'm assuming if you want Sherlock to rush off to your father's bedside, you'll be going with him."

"Only to assist."

John laughed. "You seriously think you're hiding it, don't you," he said. "This is about you, not Sherlock. He said he doesn't care, and I believe him. _You're_ the one who's curious,."

Mycroft did not speak for a good half a minute. When he did, he said, "Have you told Molly yet?"

"Have I told her what—oh, _Jesus."_ John stared blankly at Mycroft, looking for a smirk that even he had to admit wasn't there. Mycroft was a smug bastard, but he wasn't being smug now.

If anything, he looked disappointed.

John swallowed what felt like a razor blade in his throat before finally making himself ask, "How much do you know?"

"Everything. Suffice it to say that reports of your strange behaviour have prompted me to keep an eye on your movements for some time. The rest wasn't a difficult leap."

John, helpless, tried to think of who could have told Mycroft about his 'strange behaviour'. The logical people were Sherlock or Molly, of course. But as far as he'd been concerned, neither of them had noticed anything yet. "So this is it, then," he said. "It's taken you six years to do it, but you've finally got me over a barrel. You must be bloody thrilled."

"John, I—"

"So how's this work, then, hmm? I go along with this insane plan to give Sherlock a deathbed reunion with your father, or you destroy my marriage?"

"Who said anything of the kind?"

"Then why the _hell_ are you bringing a thing like that up?"

Mycroft reached out for his drink and took half of it in one gulp. "Really," he said, almost mumbling the word into his collar. "Do you need it spelled out for you?"

"I'll tell Molly, Mycroft. And Sherlock, because you know bloody well he doesn't know about this either. _I'll_ tell them. Both of them. When I'm ready. When Molly's stronger, for God's sake—"

"Calm down, John, I'm not blackmailing you. I've no intention of breathing a word of this outside this room. You've been a great help to me with Sherlock several times when he's been in a fragile state, and I—"

"Nope." John got to his feet. "I don't need anything from you," he said darkly, reaching out for the door. "Your judgement or your pity or your help, or whatever else you think you can use to get me to do whatever you want. We're not playing this game. Not this time. You do whatever you want with Sherlock, Mycroft; you know I can't stop you. Go on. Break him again, like you always do. Like I've got nothing better to do than put him back together again."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Jack Pizer's native language is Polish. Sherlock Holmes speaks a little. I speak none. THANK YOU to Arianka and Malwina for their help with it!_

 _ **A/N 2** : Thank you for reading this chapter. Any feedback is deeply appreciated. Also, the whump-poll attached to my profile is still open. I've had the vast majority of what happens in this fic mapped out on paper for months, but there are a few points where I'm able to choose based on what readers want. The majority so far are telling me to go for broke whumping anyone and everyone, in the most heinous of ways...?_ _I can be cruel, guys._


	13. Down on Whores

Except for the odd exchange with his brother, Jack Pizer said nothing on the forty-minute cab ride to New Scotland Yard. Dawid did not translate, and Sherlock deduced from this that his anxious asides were relatively unimportant to the case. Taking the opportunity to think things through, he had the sudden urge to call John in. He'd be home by now; visiting hours at the hospital were over, and he'd only get around them if there was an emergency with Molly or the twins.

Something, though, stopped Sherlock from texting. Whatever that something was, he didn't like it.

The cab arrived, and he absent-mindedly paid it and got out. He half-expected Jack to do a runner, or at least put up some form of protest once he saw where he was; Sherlock had no doubt that Dawid had translated faithfully, but that was no guarantee that Jack understood what was going on, even when he heard it in Polish. He seemed meek enough, though, escorted between them like the suspect he was. The three of them went through the ground-floor foyer, passing the cleaners still trying to get what were obviously bloodstains out of the seat of an armchair and the edges of a large blue-and-white rug dominating the middle of the floor. Sherlock didn't recognise the administration officer at the front desk, a squeaky-clean young woman with the severe bun and overdone makeup of a ballerina, but she obviously recognised him. "Lestrade's not here," she said, by way of greeting. "Donovan's holding the fort."

Delightful. Over the past year or so, Sherlock and Donovan had each become reconciled to the existence of the other, but they were never going to be friends, and Donovan still seemed to do her best to sideline Sherlock during an investigation. Not willing to show his disappointment, Sherlock simply nodded and continued leading the way to the lifts, where he let in Dawid and Jack ahead of him and swiped his electronic pass to gain access to the fourth-floor home of the murder squad.

"She said Lestrade isn't here," Dawid said, hushed, as the lift doors closed.

"Yes, she did," was the brittle reply.

"Who is Donovan?"

"Lestrade's partner, most of the time." Sherlock thought about what John would say to Dawid at this point: something about how Donovan was just as good a detective as Lestrade, and just as likely to help Jack clear his name. After a second, though, he dimissed the idea of playing John's proxy. After all, it was a blatant lie, so there was no point in telling it. No police officer Sherlock had ever encountered, whether in uniform or a plain-clothes detective, had any time for suspects with a history of domestic assault. Donovan hated them.

Almost spontaneously, Sherlock was overwhelmed with another urge to call John and tell him to come in. But John would hardly have more compassion for Pizer than Donovan: he despised men who hit women, whether they were experiencing a psychotic break at the time or not. The two of them might even get into an inconvenient argument over it. More importantly, even if John left Baker Street almost immediately, he couldn't be expected to arrive at New Scotland Yard for at least another half an hour. It had just gone nine o'clock. Charlie was in bed and Molly was coming home from hospital tomorrow. Sherlock pulled out his phone.

 _Pizer apprehended. At Scotland Yard. Won't need you tonight. Don't wait up - S_

 _\- Today 9:06pm_

Putting the phone back in his pocket, he felt a pang of something that felt like loneliness.

The front desk must have alerted Donovan; she met them in the vestibule that housed the lifts, before Sherlock could use his security pass to get them into the section of the building housing the offices and incident rooms. As usual, every fibre of her being exuded steel-minded business. No Dyer, either; he'd probably gone with Lestrade. Standing near the secure doorway, though, was the new constable, Cowley. Sherlock had noted her several times that week, but hadn't expended any energy observing her beyond the usual: thirtyish, wide-hipped, strong jaw, strawberry-blonde hair cut into a well-tended pixie cut. The black trousers she wore were cut in an unflattering way, and she was clearly the kind of woman who didn't care. Beyond that, he knew that her given name was Susannah and she'd come to the Met from a previous post at Islington.

"Okay. Which of these guys is Jack Pizer?" Donovan asked, without any other kind of greeting.

"On my left," Sherlock said.

"Great. Cowley, arrest him."

Cowley stepped forward, cuffs in hand.

"No!" Pizer squawked in English, turning as if to make for the lift again. Sherlock grasped him by the collar so hard it nearly pulled him to the floor, and he cried out again, this time either in Polish or gibberish.

"Dawid," Sherlock said, "tell him this has to happen. He has to be arrested. It's for his own safety. _Tell him."_

Once Dawid had finished translating, Sherlock helped him hold Jack in place while Cowley cuffed him and read him his rights, noting that he was being arrested for assaulting one Rebekah Allsop, not with murder. Dawid accompanied his brother as Cowley, now joined by Halloran who had just arrived back from a coffee run, took him to be photographed and fingerprinted. Sherlock remained behind. Once they were out of sight, he turned to Donovan again.

"Was that necessary?" he said. "He's mentally ill, and he speaks almost no English."

"Aww. Poor him."

Sherlock sighed. "So I take it you've been investigating his charge history."

"As much of it as I had time to get through before you got here," she said. "His rap sheet's the size of War and bloody Peace. No idea why he's still a free man. Come on. My office."

Sherlock said nothing else until he had followed her into her 'office', a dark room so small it could barely contain a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet and the two of them. "Where's Lestrade?" he asked as she shut the door behind them.

"At the hospital," she said, forcing the jamb shut with the side of her shoe. "That friend of his, Pearly Poll, got herself attacked this afternoon."

"By the killer?"

She shook her head. "We're still waiting for her to say something coherent, but I don't think so, and neither does Greg," she said. "If it was the killer we're after, he wouldn't have left her alive."

Sherlock also considered it unlikely that someone on high alert, as Poll was, would go with someone she was afraid of, but did not point this out. Instead, he pulled a bundle out of the inside pocket of his coat. A grey-blue shirt, carefully sealed in a plastic bag. "This shirt," he said. "It's stained with blood."

"Whose?"

"Excellent question—Pizer doesn't remember."

She took it, one eyebrow raised.

"I told you," he said testily. "He has blackout periods, where he can't remember what he said or did for hours at a time."

"That's convenient. Any medical specialists who can back that one up?"

Since he'd never known Jack Pizer to see any kind of doctor in his life, Sherlock decided to ignore this. "He told me he was wearing it on Friday night, and he can't remember any violent altercation with anyone while he was wearing it. If that's true, it can't have anything to do with the Whitechapel murders. We need it sampled and tested."

"Yeah, if you hadn't noticed, it's past nine o'clock at night," Donovan said. "Anderson's on call, but I'm not ringing him up and getting him in here for something that can wait until the morning. It takes ages to get those results back, anyway, and we've got better things to do tonight than go all-out for that scumbag."

"He's mentally ill, Donovan."

"Okay, he's a mentally ill scumbag, then. Sorry, but I'm out of shits to give about the welfare of someone who beats up women just 'cause he can. Because they're too scared of him to report him."

"I'm not defending that," Sherlock began.

"Really? 'Cause it sounds like you are."

"I'm trying to get him justice, Donovan. The last time I checked, you believed in it."

"And the last time I checked, you couldn't give a damn about it, if it didn't present an interesting enough puzzle for you to solve—hey!" She suddenly yelped in protest as Sherlock grabbed her hand and pulled it toward him. He drew a long sniff along her fingers all the way up her wrist, then, ignoring her attempt to pull away, hesitantly flicked out his tongue into her palm.

"… Did you just lick me…?!"

"Latex. Pure alcohol. Formalin." Sherlock released her hand. "Of course, Lestrade wouldn't have left you here just to man the phones or shuffle paperwork about. You've just attended Mary Ann Nichols' post-mortem examination."

This was a surprise. It was protocol that a member of the police attend the post-mortems of murder victims, but there was nothing saying a higher-ranking detective needed to do it. Lestrade, known for being able to carry on a cheery conversation with Molly while she was cracking open someone's rib-cage with a pair of pliers, went to as many post-mortems as he could to spare his underlings. When he wasn't available, it generally fell to the newest detective on his team, or even one of the pool of uniformed officers brought in as temporary taskforce members. As far as Sherlock knew, Donovan avoided the morgue.

"That must have been… difficult," he finally went on, though logically, he couldn't understand why. Donovan had seen plenty of dead people. This hadn't been her first post-mortem. She wasn't the type to get the vapours over the sight of intestines.

"She was strangled before her throat was cut," was all Donovan said. "If that's relevant. Might've been punched in the face, as well, and the wounds to the abdomen ran vertically _and_ horizontally. I won't get the full written report on my desk until the morning, and you can look at it once I have. As for Pizer, look. You're not exactly Mr. Popularity, so I don't understand why you've picked this guy up as one of your pets—"

"Oh, I'm quite used to you not understanding. You don't have to understand. Just _understand_ that he's a self-harm risk with a language barrier, and make sure nothing happens to him while he's in here tonight."

"No, seriously. Who are you, and what have you done with Sherlock Holmes?"

"Donovan—"

She sighed. "Fine," she said. "Like we aren't already strapped for human resources around here, I'll get one of the uniforms posted as a suicide watch, and I'll call in someone for a mental health evaluation first thing tomorrow. Will that do?"

"No," he said with a beleaguered sigh.

"It's going to have to."

"Yes, that came across quite clearly. Let me explain things to his brother."

"Yeah, go do that. Then go home. I'm sick of the sight of you."

* * *

The house was dark when Lestrade finally got home to it. Matthew was at Julie and Mark's that week, and Melissa was in bed. She'd left the oven range light on for him in the kitchen, and in its pale glow he plucked a Post-It note from the fridge: _Dinner's in here. Love you, Mel xxx_

He dutifully opened the fridge, but the cold chicken casserole sitting on the second shelf, swathed in cling-wrap, looked less than appetising. The beer Melissa had left beside it, on the other hand, was less effort than a cup of coffee and less likely to keep him awake all night, so he stood in the darkness for a couple of minutes drinking it and trying to remember if he'd remembered to lock the front door after himself. Eventually, leaving the bottle on the kitchen counter, he went to check. Dead-bolted. The hasps were in place on all of the front windows. He went upstairs and joined Melissa in bed without waking her.

~~o0o~~

When he woke again, it was still dark; the clock on the bedside table marked it as 6:03am. No sound in the darkness, except for the murmur of traffic from the main thoroughfare two streets over, the slish of wind in the plane tree outside, and the dog next door barking at something. He got up, reluctant and shivering, and went to the bathroom. When he returned to the bed, Melissa stirred and put one sleepy arm around him.

"I was going to wait up for you," she murmured. "Fell asleep. Sorry. What time did you get in?"

"Just after midnight. I had some stuff at the office to sort out."

"How's… sorry, I forget her name..."

Lestrade had temporarily forgotten Pearly Poll's real name himself. She'd been admitted to the intensive care ward under it, though: Mary Ann Connolly. "Poll," he said. "She'll recover, apparently."

"Apparently?"

"You should've seen it—no, and you shouldn't, either. They had to get a bio crew to scrub the foyer carpet. I thought she was going to die right then and there. What possessed her to have a cab take her to headquarters and not to the bloody hospital, I'll never know."

"So it was the murderer's work?"

"Nah. She… uh. You heard about what happened to Emma Smith?"

"The one that was beaten up and raped with a… broomstick, or something?" Melissa was many things, but prim was not one of them.

"Steel-framed umbrella," he said. "Or so Poll tells us, anyway, and now she'd know."

"Shit."

"Yeah. Fortunately she took a good look at the little bastards who did it. Just kids, wandering around Commercial Road assaulting sex workers for kicks. She said the oldest one would have been maybe eighteen, if that… why would anyone _do_ that?"

She thought. "Because they're mental," she finally said.

"Is that your professional opinion, Dr. Brennan?" he teased.

"That's Dr. _Lestrade_ to you," she reminded him. "And my professional opinion is that they're _sadistic_ and mental. To use the clinical terms, of course… what's the matter?"

Lestrade had just sat up. He put one hand out in the darkness to silence Melissa while he listened, tense and still.

"Mel," he finally said. "Next door's dog…"

"Rex."

"Rex. He doesn't usually bark his head off like that, does he?"

After listening for a few seconds herself, she got up. "No," she said. "He doesn't…"

"Hey." He reached out and touched her shoulder. "Stay here, I'll go have a look."

Muttering something about men and their chivalry, Melissa lay back down. Lestrade climbed out of bed and, without turning the bedside lamp on, pattered over to the bedroom door, opening it as quietly as possible and tiptoeing out into the hall.

No movement or sound anywhere on the landing.

He went downstairs, fumbling his way along the bannister in the dark; if someone was over at the Halford's place doing something they shouldn't and pissing off their Labrador, a light going on in the house next door might prompt them to bolt. He'd absent-mindedly left the oven range light on from earlier, though, which shed a weak light on the bottom of the stairs and past it to the front door. In it, just under the letterbox slot, he saw a small bundle on the tiles that hadn't been there when he'd checked the locks before bed.

He pattered back up the steps on his bare toes, going into the bathroom without turning the light on and fumbling through one of the drawers, mainly by touch. When he came out again, Melissa was standing in the bedroom doorway. "Greg," she whispered. "What's the matter?"

"Don't know yet." He gently brushed past her into the bedroom and eased open the bedside drawer without turning on the lamp, groping around until his hand closed over a tiny torch. Grabbing his phone for good measure, he left Melissa on the landing and went back downstairs, kneeling over the bundle by the door. He flicked the torch on only for long enough to ascertain that it was what he thought it was: a red rose with a grubby silver necklace wrapped around the stem. There was something else in the macabre package, though, which he hadn't expected: a cheap piece of lined paper, torn off from a notebook and impaled on one of the rose's thorns.

"You should call work," he heard Melissa say as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Yeah, I will," he said, fiddling with his phone's camera until the automatic flash was on.

"Want me to—"

"Give it a minute or two. They might still be around." Having taken half a dozen flash photographs, he got up and peered out the glass panel next to the door. The street was quiet and still. Rex had stopped that urgent, _intruder-intruder_ barking and had wound down into disgruntled little woofs at being so rudely woken. None of the houses he could see had a light on. He handed the torch to Melissa.

"Turn that on for me, will you?" he said. "I can't manage with one hand..."

She did so and shone the light on his hands as he struggled to get them into a pair of latex gloves. "Forensics are going to kill you, darling, gloves or not," she said, keeping the beam steady for him.

"I don't care right now," he said, getting back down on his haunches. "I need to look at this before they get here…" Hesitantly, he unrolled the paper with one gloved finger. The lettering was in a light red ink, the traditional colour of telephone boxes and buses, and in a flowing cursive script. In the light of the torch, he read:

~~o0o~~

 _Dear Boss,_

 _I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Yours truly_

 _Jack the Ripper_

 _Dont mind me giving the trade name_

 _PS Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha_

~~o0o~~

"What's it say?" Melissa asked him.

He took a breath. "Long story short," he said, "I think he's killed another one. That chain… I've seen it before."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** The letter in this chapter is a transcript of the real 'Dear Boss' letter. It was received by the Central News Agency, dated 27 September, 1888, and is the first time the name 'Jack the Ripper' was used. I've reproduced it as accurately as I can, given the site's limitations in formatting._


	14. Completely Barking Mental

_**A/N:** Thanks again for sticking with me on this story. :) The block of flats and backyard at 29 Hanbury Street were demolished years ago, and a brewery now stands on the site. As such, I've played fast and loose with the description of the street, pretending the 1888 building is still standing in the 2017 street._

 _In real life, Annie Chapman wasn't missing a necklace, but she was missing several brass rings from her fingers. I've omitted details that seem irrelevant, but the details of Chapman's injuries come from police and inquest statements at the time, as well as the post-mortem report. In real life her body was discovered by a carman named John Davis, but as so many Victorian names are repeated in the case (John, William, Mary/Mary Ann, etc) I've invented more modern and distinct first names for some minor witnesses._

 _There's a bit of gore in this chapter. If you think it warrants an M rating, please let me know before you let the site admins know and give me a chance to change it :p_

 _As always, any form of feedback humbly asked for and dearly cherished._

* * *

Although he'd already been awake when Sherlock had knocked on the flat door at a quarter past six, John had lost that harassed, exhausted look for the time being. He'd immediately agreed to accompany Sherlock to attend the scene of the latest murder at 29 Hanbury Street, too, provided the given: that Harry would keep an eye on Charlie until he got back or picked up Molly from the hospital at half-past twelve, whichever happened first.

"So," John said as the cab turned out of Baker Street. "Are you going to tell me about Jack Pizer?"

Sherlock, still looking out the window, shrugged. "Tell you what?"

Both of them heard the muffled _ping_ of John's text alert noise from the left-hand pocket of his jeans. He fished it out, read the incoming message, and then put it back without answering. "Maybe go back to the bit where you dropped everything to go fetch him, when you know he's not the murderer," he said.

Sherlock sighed. "When I was seventeen, I… was temporarily homeless. Pizer helped me. This doesn't excuse his criminal history, but he's hardly the monster Donovan thinks he is."

"Yeah," John muttered. "Yeah, I think I remember someone else saying something similar."

With a pang, Sherlock did, too. Sebastian Moran, defending Moriarty: _He was a good man… because he was good to me._

 _And Hitler loved his dogs._

Quite.

~o0o~

29 Hanbury Street was a tall, narrow building stretching an impressive length back from the street. Another grubby lodging house: of the eight windows facing the street, none of them had a proper set of blinds or curtains. In two or three, curious, pale faces peered out from behind bedsheets and towels. In the rest, there was nothing for privacy at all.

Although the front of the building had been cordoned off, nothing else seemed to be happening. As Sherlock was paying the cab driver, Lestrade emerged from the front door and met them on the kerb.

"Just got here," he explained before Sherlock could say anything. "Woman's corpse found in the backyard. Annie Chapman. Forty-seven. I spoke with her yesterday. She was the one who tipped me off about Pizer."

"How long dead?" was Sherlock's unsympathetic query as he and John followed Lestrade into a dark, narrow passage that smelled of cabbage and floor polish and body odour. It ran the depth of the building, and at the other end was another doorway, open to the backyard where all the excitement was happening.

"Not long," Lestrade said grimly. "Anderson says maybe an hour."

"Then Pizer has a watertight alibi: he's been locked up at Metropolitan headquarters since nine o'clock last night," Sherlock said, _I-told-you-so_ in his voice.

"Yeah, even if he didn't, I wouldn't think him a credible suspect anyway," Lestrade said. "Come see why."

Annie Chapman lay at the bottom of a short flight of steps, spine parallel to the fence that separated 29 from 27 Hanbury Street. She'd been discovered there by a Ben Davis, who lived in a bedsit on the third floor and who, in the darkness, at first assumed she'd slipped and fallen, or that she was drunk. When he'd seen the extent of her injuries, he'd about screamed the building down.

John, getting his first look at the body now sheltered from the elements by a white tent, couldn't blame the guy. Annie's throat had been cut from ear to ear. He'd done more than slash open her abdomen this time, too: going straight through her clothes, he'd opened her from sternum to pelvis, scooped out a handful of her intestines, and draped them over her left shoulder.

"Jesus," he muttered, getting down on his heels beside the body for a closer look. "That's sick."

"Just a bit," Lestrade said grimly. "I don't get it. Annie Chapman was hardly a rocket scientist, but she knew someone dangerous was out there."

"Either very stupid or very trusting," Sherlock said.

"Or very desperate."

Sherlock ignored John. "Of course, stupidity doesn't cancel out trust. You're right, though, Lestrade: a woman who told you she was afraid for her safety only yesterday wouldn't have taken a man she didn't know into a backyard for sex today."

"Maybe she was chased in here and cornered…?" Lestrade asked.

Sherlock shook his head. "If he chased her, it was in from the street. Someone being chased by an attacker with a knife wouldn't run here and let him corner her." He reached over to unzip the entrance to the evidence tent.

"Where are you off to now?"

"Upstairs," he said.

"No witnesses."

"I'm not questioning the neighbours. I need to know what someone looking out the window in the early hours of this morning would have seen and heard."

Lestrade looked in despair at John, who shrugged, as if to say _keeps him busy_. Once Sherlock had left, he cleared his throat.

"No reason why I shouldn't tell you now," he said. "Burrows reckons you're stupidly overqualified, but your application got accepted. Congratulations, new Force Medical Examiner."

"Oh, good," John said, trying to summon up the appropriate level of enthusiasm. "Yeah, really good. Great. So when do I start?"

"Not until the second week of February, so you'll have plenty of time to put in notice at the hospital if you have to. Normally they'd make you follow Cathy around to get a feel for the job, but you've pretty much been doing this job for the past six years, so I think you'll get through it okay. Come on. I hate standing in here…" He fumbled to unzip the tent entrance and clambered out, John following.

"Still, I'll track her down and ask," John said as he straightened up, taking in a lungful of the freezing morning air. The sky was paling. Dawn was on its way, though it was likely to be overcast and drizzly. "It's not as if—"

"Oh, shit," Lestrade groaned.

"What…?"

He gestured. Jake Dyer was sitting on a broken concrete slab at the opposite end of the yard, hands on his temples, forehead resting on his knees. It was body language both Lestrade and John knew well.

"Could you do me a favour, John," Lestrade said, "and go check he's okay? I've got my hands full as it is, and anyway, it's just going to draw attention if I do it."

"Sure," John said. "What do I say to him?"

"Whatever it takes for him to get his act together. If he's going to do that every time he sees blood and guts, I'm going to have to bump him to desk duty. He'll hate me."

So far as John knew, Dyer had never 'done that' at the sight of blood and guts before. Probably Lestrade knew something he didn't, or could predict a case of the Screaming Horrors from a mile off. Dyer looked up as he approached, but wiped sweat off his temples with the palm of his hand and said nothing. For the first time, John saw the vomit splashed in a puddle between his knees.

"I'm quitting," Dyer said.

"No you're not." John shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced back to the crime scene crew gathered near the back door of the building. Lestrade was now deep in conversation with Anderson.

"I bloody _am,"_ Dyer was saying. "That's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life…"

"Then you've already seen it, and it can't get any worse," John said. He thought it likely that a few more years on the murder squad would show worse things to Jacob Dyer than a dead prostitute with her intestines pulled out over her left shoulder.

"Doesn't it _bother_ you?"

"Of course it bothers me. And let me tell you something else: It bothers every single person standing over there."

Dyer scoffed. "Sherlock?"

"Yeah," John said, not sure whether he was lying or not. "Even Sherlock. Come on, you're not quitting. I walked out of an autopsy once, when I was a student. Nobody remembers it. Nobody will remember this, either—or they won't hold it against you. But the longer you sit here, the harder it's going to be to go back. Get up."

Dyer, who'd never before heard John when he was channeling his previous life as a soldier, scrambled to his feet.

"You want some water or something?" John asked him.

"No." Dyer swiped his hair back from his forehead. "I'm fine."

"Great. Greg says he needs you to take witness statements from the residents on the third floor."

Lestrade hadn't said anything of the kind, but John figured it couldn't hurt to send him. Dyer went through the back door of the block of flats, nearly colliding with Sherlock on the way.

"He's okay then?" Lestrade asked John as he returned. He was fiddling uncomfortably with his latex gloves, and glanced over his shoulder as Sherlock reached the bottom of the steps.

"Yeah, he'll be fine. Get anything important, Sherlock?"

"Has it occurred to either of you," Sherlock said, "that this is the third murder that occurred right outside occupied homes, and the _third_ that nobody claims to have seen or heard?"

"Oh, what," Lestrade said. "You think they're all lying?"

"It's difficult to tell when the entire building has a collective IQ of ninety," Sherlock said acidly. "I need to see the body again. So do you, John."

They went back into the tent, and Sherlock got down on his knees beside the dead woman, though he made no attempt this time to touch her. "Nearly decapitated," he said, after glancing her up and down twice. "With what looks like two strokes from a very sharp knife with a long blade."

"Not a pen-knife?"

"Not this time. This one has a single-edged blade. Judging from the dimensions of that hesitation mark, it's about six inches long."

"Like a carving knife," John said.

Sherlock nodded. "Which leads me to wonder how he carried it without it being conspicuous. She doesn't smell drunk… certainly not drunk enough to willingly accompany a man into a backyard when she knew he was carrying a knife. John, what do you make of these bruises?"

John glanced at Lestrade, who nodded. With a slightly put-upon sigh, he got down on the ground on the other side of the body, tweaking the chin gently to get a better look at her mouth and teeth.

"Her tongue's swollen, and sticking out past the front teeth," he said. "Consistent with throttling. Bruising on her right temple and right eyelid, and some more over her collar-bone that look like finger marks…" He trailed off.

"What?" Lestrade prompted.

John swallowed, and it was a few seconds before he replied. "The throat's cut deep, like Sherlock said. But here…" With a grimace, he hooked his finger around the woman's collar and pulled her chin back to show the gaping wound. "Do you see that…?"

Lestrade shook his head. "Help me out."

"The muscles on either side of the cut are stretched. She couldn't have done that to her own neck… Greg, I think he actually tried to take her head off."

A short silence fell.

"He's crazy," Lestrade said. "Completely barking mental..."

"Looks like it." John looked over at Sherlock, who hadn't even been listening to the commentary on the woman's head. Instead he was on his hands and knees examining the part of the fence enclosed by the tent. "Sherlock…?"

"I don't understand," Sherlock said. "The blood spatter is here…" He pointed to the dark-brown marks on the fence, about fourteen inches from the ground. "Parallel with her head, but why _here?"_

Lestrade shrugged. "We saw it with Polly Nichols, didn't we?" he said. "Wrestled her to the ground, probably by throttling her, then cut her throat while she was lying down."

"That's spatter, though," John said, leaning over for a better look at it. "Her heart was probably still beating when this happened. Might've been the cause of death."

"But her killer took her here for sex," Sherlock said, "and from the smell on her, he got it. If they were standing, the spatter would have been higher, and most of it would have ended up on the killer. Mary Ann Nichols' throat was cut when she was lying down, but she was dead."

Lestrade glanced at John, and both of them grinned. "Do you want to tell him, John," he said, "or should I?"

"Oh, what _now?"_ Sherlock demanded.

"Okay," Lestrade said. "A man's desperate enough to get off that he takes a woman for a quick shag in a filthy backyard. They won't be going at it _missionary_ , Sherlock. The ground's filthy, and anyway, you don't want someone you don't know that close up in your face. He'd take her standing up against the fence, from behind… what's it called? Three-legged dog...?"

Sherlock processed this. "She still can't have been standing against the fence when her throat was cut," he said. "So he grabbed her around the throat… from behind, then… and wrestled her to the ground…" He trailed off as his phone bleeped, and after a quick hunt through his jacket pocket, he retrieved it, reading what was obviously a text message. Whatever he read didn't please him.

"Who is it?" John asked.

"Your sister." Sherlock put his phone back in his pocket. "She's checked. No note this time."

"Uh." Lestrade ran his hand over his chin. "Yeah, there was, actually. Just before the call came in. Sent to my place."

Sherlock blinked. "Your pl- sorry, _your_ place?"

"Unless this is a copycat killing. Red rose, and one of the silver tree-of-life pendant things that I swear Annie was wearing when I talked to her at the Blind Beggar yesterday. There was something else with it, though. A note."

"Saying what?"

"I can't quote it off the top of my head. Stuff about how much he likes killing and can't wait to do it again. I handed it in to Forensics…"

"For God's sake," Sherlock groaned.

"It's back at headquarters. So's Mel. You want to come back with me and take a look?"

* * *

After leaving the crime scene operations in Donovan's capable hands, Lestrade took Sherlock and John back to headquarters, where Melissa met them. They waited in a fluorescent-lit boardroom while Lestrade, credentials in hand, went through into the evidence storage area to retrieve the 'gift' left at his flat that morning. He returned with the evidence in a clear plastic sleeve and handed it to Sherlock. "Look with your eyes, not with your hands," he said light-heartedly, as if Sherlock was three years old.

Sherlock, reading the letter through the sleeve, appeared not to hear. John could only make out the odd word or two in the letter, but the rose and silver chain were both distinct. Dangling from the chain was a tree of life pedant, of the kind that had been all the rage a few years ago…

"If it weren't for the necklace," Sherlock said, "I'd be inclined to think it's a hoax."

"Why?" John asked.

"Look at it." Sherlock shoved the plastic sleeve at him. "See for yourself."

John read the letter over to himself through the plastic, Melissa hovering at his shoulder.

"You see?" Sherlock asked.

"Yeah, for a change," John said, handing it over to Melissa. "Messes up the apostrophes and commas, but he's mostly managed the capitals."

"Finally, after so many years, you're coming along, John." Sherlock was trying for sarcasm, but sounded genuinely proud. "He uses three apostrophes in total, all of them toward the end of the letter, where his attention may have been waning. He also spelled every single one of the non-phonetic words correctly: _caught, laughed, write, enough, straight, knife, right."_

"So an educated guy, pretending he's not so educated," Lestrade said.

"Exactly. Both you and John have missed another important thing, though."

Lestrade sighed and folded his arms. "Okay," he said. "What?"

" _Dear Boss._ This wasn't just delivered to your door after mine became too difficult to access. This letter is addressed to you and written for you. Nobody has ever called me _Boss_ in their life. Do your subordinates call you that?"

Lestrade glanced at John. "When they're taking the piss, mostly," he admitted. "Donovan does it. Dyer, every now and again, just to suck up."

"The new constable?"

"Cowley?" Lestrade considered this. "Nah," he finally said. "As far as I can remember, she's called me Sir. What about Mycroft? Anyone call him 'Boss'? Confused the two of you again?"

John, remembering the kidnapping and torture of Stephen Hassell, winced.

"His peers have always called him 'Mycroft', and his subordinates address him as 'Mr. Holmes'," Sherlock said. "No useful leads there."

"So your theory that this is all about a former case is bunk, then."

 _"Your_ theory," Sherlock corrected him. "And no, it's not bunk. How many cases have we investigated together?"

"Well, that narrows it down," Lestrade said. "I mean, it doesn't narrow it a lot, but it does. Anything else you got from that letter?"

"Plenty. The letter-writer, who I remind you may _not_ be the killer, is aged between their late twenties and mid forties, probably in the older bracket. They're right-handed and educated well: at a grammar school, going by the handwriting."

John, educated at a grammar school and with the incomprehensible handwriting of a left-handed doctor, made a face. "What're these underlined words?" he wanted to know. "'Red', 'right', 'ha ha'. Is the writer giving us, what, clues...?"

Sherlock looked at Melissa. "The underlining of the word 'right' might be an indication of which is the killer's dominant hand," he said. "Though it's almost impossible to tell if they're right-handed or mocking us because they're not. As for the others… I haven't the faintest idea."

"Me neither," said Melissa. "I'm seeing some very feminine language here, though… or what passes for 'feminine' language in forensic psychology, anyway. Gendering someone through their word choices isn't an exact science. They pretty much laugh you out of court if you try it."

"I agree with them," Sherlock said stiffly. "It doesn't indicate the writer is female. It does, however, show how indirect their language is.. _Down on_ instead of _hate, buckled_ instead of _arrested, job_ instead of _murder._. Hardly something I'd expect out of, say, a leather worker..."

"Christ, Sherlock," Lestrade groaned. "Will you change the channel? We'll release Pizer this morning, okay?"

"No."

"No?"

"No, we need him to stay incarcerated, and _you_ need to send on your thanks to the Daily Mail for publicly naming him as the killer. The real killer's got an ego. He's going to be furious that someone else is getting credit for his work, and that might draw him out."

"We don't actually want him to kill any more people," Melissa said. "You know that, right?"

Sherlock gave her a withering look. "It might also cause him to act recklessly and make mistakes," he said, ignoring her question. "And will lead to another letter, soon. This one was written before Annie was killed, though the necklace indicates it was sent after… Lestrade?"

Lestrade was deep in thought, his gaze falling on a random spot on the carpet behind Melissa's left foot.

"What are you thinking, darling?" she asked him.

"Her necklace," he said, exhaling. "I'm trying to remember… we had a George Hutchinson with us in the Blind Beggar yesterday, Donovan and me. Some sort of social worker with the Whitechapel Mission, Donovan said. I suppose he could have… well, Donovan might've called me 'boss', and he might've overheard that… I don't know…"

"You're thinking he took the necklace from Annie at the Blind Beggar?"

After a few more seconds of reflection, Lestrade shook his head. "Impossible," he said. "I noticed the necklace while I was talking to Annie over a pint. Hutchinson might have had the chance to nick it before I got there, but he didn't go anywhere near her after. I'm almost positive it was still around her neck after he left."

 _"Almost_ positive…?"

"Exactly. I could be remembering the whole thing completely wrong. We've got to go back and interview our friends Charles Cross and Robert Paul, too. We're accumulating suspects, here, and we don't seem to be eliminating any of them."

"We've eliminated Jack Pizer," Sherlock said. "Luckily for us, the real killer doesn't know that."

* * *

Despite the delights of the morgue and the evidence vaults, Sherlock was back at Baker Street when John and Molly returned to it at twenty past one that afternoon. Since the nearest parking spot was a block away, John left the car idling on the kerb while he helped Molly out of the front passenger seat and into Sherlock's capable hands. By the time he'd parked and walked back to the flat, it was to find Sherlock helping Molly onto the living room sofa. Harry was in the kitchen, hovering by the boiling kettle, Charlie clinging to the legs of her jeans.

"Out of the way, Charlie," John said mildly, scooping her up. Another thought had just tugged at him, though: Charlie's mother was home for the first time in two weeks, and she was shadowing her aunt. The significance wouldn't be lost on Molly.

"John, what the fuck," Harry said, her voice a low rasp. "Look at her. Anyone with half a brain would know she's not ready to be home from hospital."

"Yeah, I _know,"_ he snapped. Then, realising he'd spoken too loudly, he glanced toward the living-room door. "We'll get her through. She'll probably sleep most of the day, and there's a nurse coming in to see her tomorrow morning."

"How'd the big farewell go?"

John sighed. "Okay… at least I think it was okay," he said. "She might have got through the worst of that before I arrived. Anyway, it won't be forever. If she's able to get around, I'll take her in tomorrow after the nurse has been in."

Before Harry could say anything else, John carried Charlie into the living room, where Sherlock was awkwardly swathing a crocheted rug over Molly's legs.

She broke into a smile. "Hey, Charlie…"

John, grasping Charlie under the arms, swung her through the air until she squealed in delight, then at the last minute placed her on Molly's knees. Immediately, she tried to crawl over into her mother's arms.

"Whoa." John slipped a cushion onto Molly's lap at the last moment. "Careful..."

"She's all right," Molly said, though she'd lifted Charlie against her shoulder to stop her clambering over the surgical site.

"You know you can't let her play rough, Molly."

"Yes, but I… oh, John," she said, her gaze falling on the fish tank. "One of Charlie's fish died _already?"_

"Ah," Sherlock said, before John could reply. "Yes. Well, actually, that was… sort of… my fault."

"Your fault…?"

"I was cleaning the tank…" Sherlock looked scathingly at John, much as if to point out that accidents happened when one was doing a sworn duty. "And I... didn't put the cover back on properly."

"It jumped out? I had a goldfish that did that once, when I was a little girl."

"Don't know," John said. "I didn't notice either, until… well, let's just say I now know not to ask Charlie to give me what's in her hand until I know what it is."

Molly screwed her face up. "Yuck," she said. "But she was… okay? She wasn't upset or anything?"

"As I said when I _got_ the goldfish," Sherlock said with another pointed look at John, "I don't think she's old enough to understand concepts like death."

"Then she's not old enough to mind if you don't _replace_ the goldfish," John replied. "I mean it, Sherlock. You can't just replace her fish for the next seventeen years." He turned to Molly. "Do you want something? Tea? Coffee…?"

"Oh, tea, please," she said. "I'm dying for a decent cuppa. And then _pretty_ please, I'd like everything you've got on this Whitechapel case, all in the same place. And the laptop. And the phone…"

He blinked. "Sure?" he asked. "You did just get in the door."

"Oh, John, I've got to do _something_ ," she said.

John made no further protest, instead going out to tell Harry to make tea and then on upstairs to collect the information Sherlock held on the Whitechapel case. He'd just collected what he needed when he heard Sherlock's step on the stairs and he appeared in the living room doorway.

"Sorry," John said. "I'll get out of your way."

"No, it's… fine…" Sherlock sounded vague. Then, after clearing his throat, he ventured, "You want Molly on this case…?"

"I want her to not go stark staring crazy," John said. "Which she nearly did after Charlie was born, remember? And she didn't have to leave Charlie at the hospital. If we give her time to daydream, guess what she's going to be thinking about every single time?"

"Yes," Sherlock said uncomfortably, glancing toward the mantlepiece.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter what I want. _She_ wants to work this case from home, so that's the end of that…" John's phone pinged again. He checked it, then put it back in his pocket without answering it.

"Four," Sherlock remarked.

"Sorry?"

"That's the fourth text you've got today that you haven't responded to. And the first came in before dawn."

John sighed. No. Now that Molly was home, he wasn't going to fight this battle.

"Sherlock," he said. "Okay. I guess there's not going to be a better time to tell you... it's Mycroft. He got an email from Christabel yesterday saying your dad's been hospitalised, and he's in a pretty bad way. His heart, or something."

Sherlock looked at him in silence. "Is that it…?" he finally asked.

"What do you mean, is that it?"

He shrugged. "I assumed there'd be more," he said.

"Well, I think Mycroft's pretty keen for both of you to get over to Washington and see him before he dies." By both profession and personality, John had never used euphemisms like _passed away._

"I see. He can go if he likes," Sherlock said snippily. "I couldn't if I wanted to."

"Which you don't."

"Which I don't. Certainly not while there's a serial killer on the loose."

With a sigh, John decided to let this go. Short of Mycroft having him kidnapped and dragged onto an Airbus, there was no way to force Sherlock to see his father.

 _Well, I've asked him. That should shut Mycroft up for a bit._ "With any luck, there won't be a serial killer on the loose for a while."

"Don't confuse luck with skill," Sherlock said loftily. "Mine or Molly's."

"What about mine?" John teased him.

"Yours is luck."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. Please, take those files to Molly before she starts obsessing over the wallpaper."


	15. The Ripper

_**A/N:** The event Mycroft and Sherlock are discussing is written out in full in my one-shot, 'Leavetaking.' As half of this AU predates seasons 3 and most of it predates season 4, I have a completely different family history for the Holmes brothers, and their age gap is ten years, not seven._

* * *

It was almost five o'clock, and Mycroft was contemplating leaving his Whitehall office early and picking up some Chinese food on the way home. Before he could decide whether to allow himself such a guilty pleasure, the intercom buzzed and Leonard, his personal assistant, announced through it that Sherlock had arrived to see him.

He sighed. John Watson was always going to act in Sherlock's best interests, but Mycroft didn't always agree with what those best interests were. For example, after being vehemently against telling Sherlock about his father's illness at all, John wasn't above changing his mind and beating Mycroft to the news. As Sherlock stalked into the room, hands shoved in his pockets, Mycroft realised that that was exactly what John had just done.

"Good afternoon," he said, pretending to be absorbed in the papers at his desk and pointing at a vacant chair. Sherlock remained standing.

"Yes, I'm sure it's a good afternoon for someone, somewhere," he agreed, pacing over to look at a copy of an eleventh-century Anglo Saxon map that had adorned that wall since 1994. "Anyway, what are you doing?"

"You don't want to know."

"Yes, you're right; I don't want to know, I was just making conversation. Mycroft, if you want to tell me something, is it too much to ask that you call _me_ and not John?'

Mycroft looked baffled, and justifiably so. It had been commonly accepted between the Holmes brothers that they would use John Watson as a conduit for sensitive information between them, to save on a lot of unnecessary awkwardness.

"But it's true, though?" Sherlock said, seeing he wasn't going to answer. "He's actually dying this time?"

"So I'm told. I see no reason for our sister to be lying."

Sherlock scoffed. "Oh, so she's 'our sister' now that he's on his deathbed?"

"Context is everything, brother mine. For example, the sort of reconciliations one can't imagine making while a person is healthy can seem more… appropriate… when they are dying."

"Seriously. You seriously want me to go over to America to see him. Like that."

"Sherlock—"

"There can be no 'reconciliation', Mycroft. The very expression implies mutual fault. There's none on my side."

"I've never said there was," Mycroft said, some heat creeping into his voice. "So kindly don't put words into my mouth. You were a little boy—"

"Yes, I know I was a little boy; I was there," Sherlock said.

"Just four years old, in fact. So I'm assuming you remember very little about it."

Sherlock scowled and said, "I'd read something in one of your books about Egypt or somewhere, and it mentioned polygamy. I asked him what it was, and he told me. I thought it only common sense that this was what Dad was practicing with my babysitter, who'd been in his bed. I suppose Mummy didn't see the funny side."

"He called you a liar," Mycroft said. "And she defended you."

"Did she?" Sherlock said archly. "Oh, that was nice of her. I suppose that excuses packing me off to boarding school three years later."

"That wasn't her decision, Sherlock. That was mine."

Sherlock blinked. "Yours?"

"I was about to go to Cambridge and knew I could only be home rarely during the term. Mummy was… unstable. I thought it kinder to you to send you to boarding school."

"Kinder? It wasn't _kinder_ , Mycroft. I spent every day for the first six years being beaten to a pulp. I—wait." Sherlock drew a breath. "Are you trying to tell me that you thought Mummy was some sort of physical threat to me?"

Mycroft pursed his lips. "The thought occurred," he said. "She was prone to being overwhelmed, and you were an overwhelming child."

Sherlock cleared his throat. Then he went to the nearest chair and sat down in it, arranging his coat around himself, and cleared his throat again. "There's something else I remember," he said. "Something I'm not sure happened."

Mycroft waited.

"You put me to bed that night," he said. "And you pulled up a chair near the door and stayed there until I fell asleep. Did you stay there all night?"

"Sherlock—"

"I was still awake when our father left," he said. "I remember it."

"Sherlock—"

"I don't remember her ever hitting me."

"Good God, will you let me get a _word_ in? She didn't hit you. I thought it best to _prevent_ it rather than put you back together afterwards."

Another memory sprang up in Sherlock: the car ride home from Somerton with John after he'd found out his father had died. At first Sherlock had assumed, quite naturally, that the Watson patriarch had hit Harry. He'd certainly hit one of his children. But it wasn't Harry.

"If you don't want to see him before he dies," Mycroft said, standing up and gathering together his work for the day, "then I certainly can't make you. The option has been put before you, and you've rejected it, as is your right. I hope you don't come to regret your decision, but in the meantime, let's drop the subject, shall we?"

* * *

Lestrade was ill at ease.

It had been a long day of wrangling with his superiors and with the press. There'd been a press conference that afternoon, where he'd announced the murder of Annie Chapman and that the police had a suspect in custody, which was true, and that they expected to make an arrest within 24 hours, which wasn't. The killer's letter—and already, Lestrade had heard people in his squad refer to him as _Jack the Ripper_ or _The Ripper—_ was being held back indefinitely. The letter had practically goaded him into releasing it. Both Sherlock and Melissa though it likely that no press mentions of his manifesto would provoke the killer into sending another. Meanwhile, he'd pulled two dozen officers, male and female, from ordinary duties and was planning to send them out into the streets of Whitechapel that night in plain clothes. Just in case all the goading was working too well.

He'd just shaken off the last of the press and made it to the refuge of his office, ostensibly to see if the post-mortem report for Annie Chapman had come in yet. It hadn't, but Sherlock Holmes was there with the same idea. The two had sat in silence for nearly ten awkward minutes, waiting for the computer to blip out an email alert.

"Yeah, I've got questions," Lestrade finally said.

"Of course you do," Sherlock said. He was sitting in a chair opposite Lestrade, reading a newspaper report of the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, with both well-polished Italian leather shoes propped up on the desk.

"Here's the first one: why? There're only a few reasons why people take the heads off corpses—"

"That you know of."

"I wouldn't be mentioning any I _don't_ know of," Lestrade said, dropping wearily into his seat. "Anyway. A murderer beheads someone to kill them, to prevent identification, or to facilitate disposing of the body—to fit it in a shallow grave or a suitcase, say. He didn't do anything like that here, so what _was_ he doing? Or trying to do?"

"Why don't you ask your wife?" Sherlock said, which was his way of saying he didn't know. He got up and went over to the coffee machine, operating it almost feverishly.

Lestrade put his head in his hands. "Maybe we should have released the letter," he said.

"No," Sherlock said. "Your instincts were right the first time. By asking you to keep the letter back, he was trying to goad you into releasing it. We couldn't prevent the crime that way and feeding his ego would lead him to do it again. How is Pizer?"

"Okay, from what I hear. As okay as you can be to be stuck in a cell. But we're using him as a lure, Sherlock. Pretty much daring this guy to kill another one."

Sherlock turned around. "Yes," he said, puzzled. "It's a sting operation. That's what the police _do_. And both you and I are going out there to oversee it."

"I hope to God we end up in the right place at the right time," Lestrade muttered.

"We know the sorts of places he hunts," Sherlock said.

Lestrade threw his pen onto the desk. "The biggest problem is," he said, "nobody could care less. You said it at the crime scene this morning, Sherlock. Three murders, all in public, and nobody's willing to say they heard or saw anything…"

He trailed off as there was a rap on the half-open office door. Both he and Sherlock looked up to see Jake Dyer standing there, a notepad in his hand.

"Jake," Lestrade said. Incidents of his forgetting to address him as 'Dyer' on the job were steadily increasing. He hadn't noticed yet, but Sherlock had. "What've you got?"

"A couple of witnesses for the Chapman murder, sir."

Lestrade exchanged a glance with Sherlock. "Thought you said you didn't get anything useful this morning," he said.

"I didn't." Dyer sounded a little defensive. "But I remember something you once said about how time of the day's important to getting a witness available and ready to talk. I figured anyone at number 29 or 27 who works full time mightn't be home til five, and you feel more relaxed and ready to chat about things when dinner's on and the heating's up than when you've got a copper knocking on your door at six in the morning."

"And it worked."

"Oh, yeah. Fella living on the second floor of number 27, next door. They've got an outhouse, did you know?" Dyer sounded aghast, but Lestrade shrugged.

"We didn't have an indoor loo until I was about seven," he said. "They're great fun in winter."

"I bet. Anyway, he'd gone out for a p—um, to use the outhouse—at around 5:30 this morning. He said there were two people standing close to the fence in the yard of number 29, a man and a woman. He didn't see them, and only heard a bit of what they were talking about, but he's sure the woman said "No!" He didn't think much of it and went inside, but came out a minute or two later. This time he says he heard something heavy fall against the fence."

"Did he see what?"

Dyer shook his head.

"What, is he stupid? Sure, you can't see through it, but it's, what, six feet tall? He could've easily popped his head over to see what was going on, especially if he heard what might've been a cry for help. What did he come out for the second time, anyway…?"

"He says to mend a hasp on the—um, lavatory door."

"Who does that at 5:30am in winter?"

Dyer shrugged. "I asked him if he heard anything other than the fence rattling—voices, gasping, even a fly being undone or something. He said that was it."

Lestrade, exasperated, looked across at Sherlock. "What do you reckon?"

"Reliable witness, most likely." Sherlock folded the newspaper and put it on the desk. "Unfortunately, his veracity isn't matched by any useful details. You said there was another witness, Dyer."

"Yeah." Dyer looked at his notes. "And think we might be onto something with her. She seemed on the level to me. Beth Long, forty-seven, works at an off-license in Commercial Road. She was on her way through Hanbury Street to Spitalfields Market at about 5:30. Says she's sure of the time because she heard the clock at the Black Eagle Brewery going off, and it drives the locals crazy. She was on the same side of the street as number 29, and saw a woman she identified as Annie standing outside it with a man. She recognised Annie from her photograph, but says the guy's back was to her and she had no reason to turn around and really look at him. Anyway, as she passed she heard him say, 'Will you?' and Annie, she said 'Yes.' Proposition?"

"Much better," Sherlock said. "Though you're about to tell me she couldn't give a description of the man."

"Not a great one, but she did her best. She said he was dark—not black, perhaps Mediterranean or Middle Eastern…"

"She would say that," Lestrade groaned.

"Yeah, I'm not going to start racially profiling anyone yet, sir. Anyway, she said he was taller than Annie but not tall by any stretch: maybe five foot eight. Wearing a dark coat and a brown hat with a brim and flaps over the ears."

Sherlock looked up. "You mean to say, he was wearing a deerstalker?"

"Sure, I guess that's what she described. Says he was fortyish and had a 'shabby genteel' appearance, though I don't think she really knows what she means by that, 'cause I sure don't. And she says she couldn't see anything that suggested either Annie or the guy she was with had been drinking."

"Much good it did her." Lestrade glanced again at the computer on his desk, as if willing someone to hurry up and send through Chapman's post-mortem report.

"Anyway, she's at the station now, giving the whole thing in writing."

"Great. You're coming with us tonight, then? Make sure you write up your report before you leave."

Dyer knew Lestrade's bad moods by now, and scurried off without argument. After he'd shut the door, Sherlock brought his hands to his mouth, thinking hard.

"There's no reason for us to believe Beth Long isn't telling the truth," he said. "She saw someone with Annie Chapman, and that someone was almost certainly her killer. _Wearing a deerstalker."_

"Okay, so…?"

"He then proceeded to, effectively, give Annie a post-mortem hysterectomy. On the day before Molly, still recovering from hers, was released from hospital. And Martha Tabram? Stabbed through the sternum with a bayonet, which sent us chasing after a perpetrator who was a career soldier. The letter sent to you accused us of believing the killer to be a doctor. He left the first package on John and Molly's window and the second at the front door."

"Oh, what, you're saying the first was to John, and the second was to you…?"

"Certainly the third demonstrated he knows where you live and how your team address you in fun. And several hours after you spoke with Annie Chapman, the killer chose her. _Her_ , of any woman in Whitechapel…"

Lestrade got up and picked up the handset of his phone. "I'll get Donovan onto it before we leave," he said. "We need info on every man in the Whitechapel area with any kind of criminal record. Sounds like we know him by name."

"He certainly knows us. All of us."

* * *

Now that _Team Watson,_ as Harry referred to her brother and sister-in-law, had been reunited, it was time for some R and R. She'd already decided that this was going to be in the form of a date.

"What's her name?" John asked her, watching her try to decide what earrings to wear in the grubby bathroom mirror of 221C. She rarely 'dressed up', but when she did, she did it well; she was wearing a long-sleeved dress of claret velvet and the most extreme pair of heels John had seen since Irene Adler had exited his life. Just then she was trying to decide between diamond or onyx drops.

"Rochelle," she said distractedly. "She's a curator at a Soho art gallery, would you believe?"

"Wow. Since when have you had time for artists?"

"You'd understand if you saw her. Legs all the way up to her arse."

"That's generally where legs end, yeah."

"Shut your face. Anyway, I'm just hoping having to explain why we can't share a bottle of wine isn't going to be too awkward. I've left her number with Molly, just in case she turns out to be an axe murderer."

"I doubt Molly's up for running to your rescue right now," he said.

She looked concerned. "You need me to stay?"

"God, no," he said. "You've been doing way too much for us already lately. Go out. Don't come back until at least midnight." Then, after a pause, he offered, "You look nice."

"… Really? Shit. 'Nice' was definitely not the look I was going for tonight, John."

"You're disgusting."

"Always." She glanced at her watch. "And I'm going to miss this bus if I don't get a move on. Call me if you need me, right? I really won't mind. She's probably a crap shag anyway."

"Now you're trying too hard, Harry."

"Fuck off. I'll see you later."

* * *

John had been looking forward to his first evening alone with Molly in weeks, but once Harry had gone, it felt strangely awkward. Molly had been researching the Whitechapel case on and off all day, in between dozing and playing with Charlie; he'd gone back into the hospital for an hour or two that afternoon, though the twins had been asleep nearly the entire time he'd been there. He'd then dutifully returned with both photos and video for Molly, who'd accepted them. But it lay between them that evening: What were the twins doing right now? Were they crying? Did they need their parents?

After dinner, John bathed Charlie and put her to bed. He had just finished feeding the cats and was washing up a fork when he heard Molly exclaim "Oh, God," from the living room.

"What?" he called out, twisting the faucet off and hurrying over to the living room doorway to find Molly where he'd left her on the sofa, her iPad on her knees.

"Oh," she said, glancing up and seeing his face. "Sorry. I'm fine… well, I'm… that wasn't expected. Sharon's just sent through the post-mortem notes for Annie Chapman, and if Greg and Sherlock haven't seen them yet, they need to, right away."

"Why?"

"You said her intestines were all pulled out. Now we know why: her uterus and its peripheral appendages are missing, along with the upper part of her vagina and the posterior two-thirds of her bladder. He was just moving the intestines out of the way to get to what he really wanted."

She moved her legs to the floor, wincing, and John sat down on the sofa beside her. Both of them were silent for a few moments.

"Okay," he finally said. "Sounds like someone's moved the goalposts on us. Do you think this is someone who knows what he's doing?"

She pondered. "I don't know," she said. "He avoided her cervix and rectum, which to me says he does, but he divided her bladder and left part of it in her."

"Still—"

"Yes, exactly," she said, without bothering to wait for it. "If the uterus was what he was specifically after, he wouldn't have cared what happened to her bladder, he'd just be cutting a wide berth around it to be on the safe side."

"How long would it take you to do a job like that?" John asked her. "I mean, given that she was probably dead at the time…"

"Only a couple of minutes," she said. "Sharon agrees that the knife was at least five or six inches in length, very sharp, and that this was probably done in one sweeping motion. He wasn't being too careful with the surrounding tissues. If you were doing that on someone alive, it would… take a lot longer."

John decided not to point out that he already knew this. Just a fortnight before, he'd felt every second of it as he waited, caked with dried blood, in a hospital waiting room. Instead, with as much levity as he could muster, he said, "Mel said he takes trophies, but it's a weird one. Exactly what do you do with someone's stolen uterus?"

"Besides the obvious?" The case against Professor Ross Harding was due to go ahead in March. "No idea, John. But, well, perhaps Sherlock knows? Melissa…?"

"Tell you what," he said, getting up again. "I'm going to put the kettle on. I'll call him, you call her, and we'll swap notes."

As he went back into the kitchen and filled the kettle, he heard Molly give Melissa a bright, gentle greeting. Toby, licking his lips, was weaving around his legs.

"Hey, cut it out," he said mildly, reaching down and giving him an absent-minded pat. As he did so, the phone in his pocket gave a little _ping_. He pulled it out and read the incoming message:

 _Hey how's things? Did you want to meet for coffee tomorrow morning?_

 _\- Today 6:14pm_

Giving something between a smile and a grimace, he thumbed out a response.

 _Can't sorry. Molly came home from the hospital today._

 _\- Today 6:15pm_

He made tea for both Molly and himself, hands shaking a little, drawing it out for a return message. Finally the phone pinged again.

 _Ah OK. Best wishes to her and bubs. See you Friday if not before. Call if you want to catch up before then :-)_

 _\- Today 6:17pm_

 **~o0o~**

 _Thanks. Will do :-)_

 _\- Today 6:18pm_

* * *

 _A/N 2: I solemnly swear that everything will make sense in the end, from the identity of the killer to what John's up to. You may or may not like the explanation, but there'll be one :p_

 _In real life, the 'Dear Boss' letter was sent to the Central News Agency. Although jewelry and personal items were missing from some of the Ripper's victims, he didn't send any "tributes" of the kind I describe to anyone. Pearly Poll was a real person, a friend of Tabram's and the last person to see her alive, but she wasn't attacked in the same way Emma Smith (also a real person) was. Annie Chapman_ was _, attacked and murdered, but she didn't talk to anyone in The Blind Beggar beforehand._

 _Apart from those major points, I've tried to keep things accurate and found they fit into the show and into my AU in a creepy way. The killer of Martha Tabram really did use a bayonet and was assumed to be a soldier. The reference to a doctor in the 'Dear Boss' letter is verbatim. Annie Chapman's uterus was removed from her body and never found, and yes, the man Elizabeth Long saw with Annie Chapman before her death was wearing a deerstalker hat - they were a fairly common form of man's hat at the time._

 _Thanks again for reading this fic. Feedback humbly asked for and dearly cherished, even if that feedback is "you suck" ;)_


	16. Fade to Black

By eight o'clock, there was a strange festive sort of vibe at New Scotland Yard as people prepared to head out to the bars and clubs around Whitechapel. The heating on the fourth floor had, as usual, been turned up far too high, and the air in the open plan office was heavy with conflicting scents of aftershave, perfume, deodorant, cologne and hairspray. Lestrade hadn't the slightest intention of treating the excursion like a pantomime, and had settled for the usual shirt and jacket he wore when Melissa dragged him to anything that resembled a 'night out'. Melissa was at home by now, getting ready, and the thought of what outlandish outfit she'd come up with this time made him smile to himself. She was ridiculous, but life was good when it was ridiculous.

He'd been in the staff kitchen getting coffee when he heard scattered applause at the other end of the floor, and stepped out to see what the fun was about. Sherlock had just emerged from the men's washroom, wearing a white-and-black Waxahatchee t-shirt and skinny blue jeans, with a short black jacket and a green scarf.

"What?" Sherlock said to him in an anxious whisper. "Is this wrong? Should I change it?"

Lestrade shrugged. "Looks okay to me," he said, "but I'm not really the person to ask. Try Mel or Jake. Donovan, even; she's around somewhere." He paused. "Just never seen you in jeans before, that's all. I didn't think you _owned_ jeans."

"Well… you know," he said, and if Lestrade didn't know better, he could have sworn he was embarrassed. "They come in handy. For cases."

Luckily, the awkward moment was broken by the arrival of Donovan and Dyer, who'd been preparing for the night's assignment in the staffroom. Dyer was dressed much the same way Sherlock was, though, Lestrade admitted with a touch of uncharacteristic cattiness, he was over ten years younger and carried it better. Donovan had let her hair out—literally—and was wearing a strappy teal-coloured dress and more glitter than a six-year-old girl's birthday card. She did, however, also have a heavy coat on over the ensemble. He could practically hear, without bothering to ask, her proclamation that she had no intention of freezing her arse off for Jack the Ripper or anyone else.

He took the three of them into the privacy of his office, where he shut the door and went behind the desk. There was nothing there he particularly wanted, but he found himself doing it when he wanted to give a subtle hint that there was a person in charge, and that person was him.

"Right," Donovan said. "Now that we're all stood here dressed like idiots…" She did not mention or look directly at Sherlock… "Let's get down to the case. I had a look, Greg. This is something we've literally never seen before. The last case we dealt with where somebody was playing with intestines or absconding with people's uteruses was in 1987."

"So there _was_ another case like this?"

"Close, but not close enough, if you ask me," she said. "Julian Fugazzi, twenty-three, student at Greenwich. Murdered his Swedish girlfriend, Amalia Hedquist. He pulled her guts out and apparently fried and ate some of her organs, or tried to."

"What happened to him?"

"Unfit to plead—from the sounds of things he was so barking mental it's disgusting no-one picked up on it before he killed someone. He was sent to Broadmoor, but he was declared fit to be released last year. He's living in council housing in Walworth. I know they're keeping an eye on him, but maybe he—"

"For God's sake, it's not him," Sherlock said before she could get any further. "This is someone with a grudge, someone who knows me, Lestrade, his team. It's possible that Fugazzi could have a grudge against Lestrade, though he was working in Bristol at the time. But I was ten years old in 1987. Beside that, the Fugazzi murder was a standard domestic at heart, the murder of a sexual partner. From everything we've encountered, the Ripper is hunting strangers. Anyway, Fugazzi is Lestrade's age and Melissa says we're looking for a much younger man."

Lestrade decided to take this as the statement of fact it was, and not a snide commentary. "Hopefully, he's trawling for victims in pubs, or just outside of pubs," he said. "Keep me informed, and let me know if you have any more ideas on what we're looking for. Come on, let's move. Before we go, you all need to sit through my sixty-second speech on why nobody's supposed to get legless pissed or go off and shag a stranger tonight. Donovan, do you want to pair up with Cowley?"

Donovan muttered something that sounded like "Not particularly," but she nodded.

"I think she'd benefit from your expertise. Try not to savage her if she asks a stupid question. Before we go out there, any last questions?"

"Yeah," Donovan said, grinning. "Sherlock, did you just tell us you're _forty?"_

He rolled his eyes. "Not for six months. Let's move on, shall we?"

* * *

Molly opened her eyes and sat up slowly. She'd managed to fall asleep on the sofa. The only light on in the room was the TV, with the nine o'clock news just starting; she was aching all over and leaking milk onto her shirt. Casper was perched on the armrest and Toby was sprawled out on the floor in the doorway, but there was no sign of John. In gathering clarity, though, she heard him talking in the kitchen.

On the phone?

That wasn't unusual, especially since she knew Sherlock and Greg were off on some sort of sting operation that night that John had probably intended to go to as well, before she'd inconveniently come home from the hospital. She stood up carefully and went out to him.

John was definitely talking, but it wasn't on the phone. He was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor with Charlie, bed-haired and wrapped up in her pyjamas and dressing gown, her 'baby' at her side. Between them was a pink plastic melamine tea set that Harry had bought Charlie for Christmas. John was suggesting to Charlie what imaginary dishes they were partaking of, and at each suggestion, she pursed her lips and shook her head. _No_ was fast becoming her favourite word.

Something welled up in Molly's chest. Something that hurt. A lot.

"John…?"

John looked up and spilled to his feet, a little embarrassed.

"Sorry," she said, before he could. "I'm... I know I'm not good company this evening."

He shrugged. "You just got out of hospital," he pointed out. "You're not here to entertain me."

Molly decided not to pursue this, turning her attention to Charlie instead. "Did you wake up again, Charlie-bear?" She looked at John. "She does this every night now?"

"Just about," he said wryly. "I thought I'd tired her out before, but apparently not."

"I'll put the kettle on," she said. It was a surprise she'd managed to fall asleep at all, when she and John had had about fifteen cups of tea that day—every time the vibe between them got awkward, one of them suggested it. John took the hint, putting Charlie back to bed. By the time he emerged again, shutting the door against Charlie's little whines of protest, she had both cups on the table.

"This is why you're not sleeping," she said, not sure as to whether it was a question or a statement.

"Yeah, I guess." He looked up at her. "But I don't think I'm the only one, somehow. What's wrong?"

She hesitated.

"Come on, you know you can tell me."

It was on the tip of her tongue to shoot back: _Why should I? You don't tell me when things are troubling you._

"It's just…" She took a breath. "When I was watching you playing with Charlie just now, I was just thinking… imagining you playing with our _son_..."

"Oh, Lolly," he said, mouth tightening into a pained grimace as he reached across for her hand. "You'd better not be making yourself miserable on my account. Honestly. I wanted Charlie to be a boy. Two seconds to change my mind."

"But we knew we could try again for a boy when we had Charlie," she reminded him.

"That's not the point. I wasn't standing there with you in the delivery room thinking 'better luck next time'," he said. "And anyway, look. We've known Sophie and Louise were girls nearly the whole time. It's not like… what happened when they were born… stopped our plans to have any more, right? We really weren't going to have four kids in the first place."

"No," she said, looking down at her tea and deciding not to remind John that once, she'd wanted five. True, she'd amended that to _two_ after Charlie had been such a difficult newborn, and motherhood had made her so tired and restless, but still…

"You know," John said. "I went to school with a guy who was one of twelve."

"Twelve!"

"His parents kept trying to have a girl."

"Did they…?"

"I don't think so, no."

She winced, wondering how many of those twelve boys were unwanted. "John," she said. "You and Harry. Your mother… um. I…"

"How come she never had more kids than me and Harry, when she was more Catholic than the Pope?" He shrugged. "I don't know. Might've been a similar thing."

"Did she care?"

"I doubt she'd have said if she did. But no. I don't think she cared."

She decided not to ask about his father. He'd told her once: Harry was the elder by six minutes, and in the confusion of relayed information, his father had first been informed he'd only had a daughter. John had dared to wonder aloud, once, as to whether his father had ever actually wanted him.

"They said it might take a little while to sink in," she mumbled, taking a sip of her tea. "The whole... you know. What happened. Everything."

"I knew it would," he said. When he didn't elaborate further, she realised: he was remembering how long it took after being shot to work out how he felt about her role in Sherlock's fake suicide. It was only after Charlie had been born that the worst traces of that bitterness had melted away.

"John—"

But the moment was broken when both their text alerts went off. John swiped his phone off the kitchen counter and checked the incoming message.

"Who is it?" she asked him, since getting up and going to the living room to fetch her own phone seemed like an insurmountable feat just then.

"Harry," he said with a little groan. "Apparently Rochelle was a 'crap lay', even if she got a good dinner and decent conversation out of it, and the date fizzed out. Wants to know if the coast is clear so she can come home."

Molly winced. John had put it politely, but she would have bet a year's pay that what Harry had actually asked was something along the lines of whether she could come home or if it would interrupt the two of them having sex. Harry knew entirely well that it would be months before she'd have any chance of interrupting _that._

"It's cold out," she said. "And we probably shouldn't leave her to temptation when she's down, or she might end up in a pub. Anyway, there's the third flat, so she's not interrupting anything."

John nodded, thumbing out a text reply. As he did so, another thought occurred to Molly.

"John?"

"Mmm?"

"Now that Harry's coming back, you can… well, Sherlock and Greg are out in Whitechapel on this case tonight, aren't they?"

He looked up, surprised. "How did you know about that?"

"Sherlock told me. Please go and meet them, wherever they are? Sherlock would really like it."

* * *

Donovan had been dreading taking Cowley out with her. She had nothing against her, of course, except that she was brand new at the Met and still trying to remember where the loo and kitchen were, and she hadn't the time or the patience to remind her how to do her job. To her surprise, though, Susannah Cowley seemed a good sort. Some years younger, and apparently single, she'd taken to the ambience of the Good Samaritan pub on Turner Street and was completely in her element, even going so far as to eye off a pair of young men sitting together at the bar.

"That's… I'm allowed to do that, right?" she whispered across the table.

Donovan snorted. "I don't think there's anything against you flirting. We're supposed to look natural, anyway." She looked down at her hands. Something had stopped her from taking off her engagement and wedding rings before heading out that night, though that hadn't stopped two or three men from trying to pick her up so far.

"Is there actual protocol for that?" Cowley asked her.

"For what?"

"For dating, you know, when you're a detective."

Donovan shrugged. "I really don't think I'm the right person to ask," she said. Cowley obviously didn't know about her history with Philip Anderson, though give her a couple more weeks and she would. People still talked about it, mainly when she and Anderson came into contact at a crime scene. There was no animosity on either side, and these days it was only a little weird; and anyway, she felt sorry for the guy. After all, she'd come out of the debacle intact, with only her reputation a little marred among people she didn't care about anyway. Anderson's wife had dumped him, or perhaps he'd got all pathetic and dumped her. Either way, Philip Anderson had been a single man for the last six years, and was all too likely to stay that way, if his dating trajectory stood for anything.

She took a gulp of her pint. "I don't think there are too many written rules," she said. "And the ones that are chapter-and-book, they're pretty obvious. You're not allowed to date anyone involved in an open case—a suspect or a witness or a victim."

Cowley chuckled into her glass.

"Well, not _all_ of ours end up dead." Donovan smiled. She thought she might even like Cowley, and maybe they'd even end up calling each other by their first names one of these days. "But you're definitely not allowed to date the dead ones. You're not supposed to shag your colleagues, either. People do it."

She felt a hot flush on her face. Between the death of Sergeant Lauren Jones last August and the appointment of Constable Susannah Cowley the previous week, she'd been the only woman on the fifteen-detective team. Had that sounded like…?

Bugger it. Who cared what Cowley thought about her, anyway. She put down her empty pint glass and stood up, picking her coat up off the back of her chair. "Anyway," she said. "Slim pickings here. Let's go up to the Dog and Truck." She made a vague gesture with her phone as she picked it up off the table and put it in her handbag.

* * *

Lestrade, who'd been sitting on a bar stool next to Sherlock at the Dog and Truck for the previous hour, put his own phone in his pocket and stood up. Donovan had sent through that she and Cowley had just left the Good Samaritan, so it was time to be off so that they could swap places. He'd also just heard from Mel, who was with Dyer at The White Hart on Whitechapel Street, half a mile away, apparently being 'bored off her tits.'

"Right," he said. "Had well enough of this place. Way too many TV screens. Want to check out the Good Samaritan?"

Sherlock did, or so he said. But first, he had to go to the men's room—though this was almost surely a cover for doing more covert, slightly creepy detective work—and Lestrade waited for him in the street outside, wishing he'd brought a thicker jacket. As the weather reports kept saying over and over, London was currently experiencing a punishingly cold winter. With fingers fast becoming numb with cold, he texted Melissa.

* * *

 _Anything doing?_

 _\- Today 9:24pm_

* * *

 _Lots of idiots trying to pick up drunk girls, but nothing suspicious._

 _\- Today 9:25pm_

* * *

 _We're moving on. You?_

 _\- Today 9:25pm_

* * *

 _Same. Text you when we're at Indo. Love you._

 _\- Today 9:26pm_

* * *

Quickly, without thinking too much about it and against Sherlock's impending arrival, he fumbled out:

 _Love you too._

 _\- Today 9:26pm_

* * *

Putting his phone in his pocket, he looked up just in time to see Sherlock emerge from the front door. They walked in silence up along Back Church Lane, with its untidy jumble of Late Victorian warehouses and chunky art deco office buildings, up toward the lights and safety of Commercial Road. For a minute or two, Sherlock seemed lost in thought, pausing only to read and answer a text alert on his phone.

"John's meeting us at the Good Samaritan," he said finally, his voice so flat it was hard to read anything out of it.

"Oh, good," Lestrade said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I owe him a pint."

"You owe _me_ a pint."

"For finding Poll while stuck at home with Charlie." Lestrade chuckled. "I was hoping you'd forgotten about that, but fair enough. You're in a queue, though. I'm not made of money."

Sherlock made a sound of dismissal. After all, Sherlock Holmes rarely drank, and never to excess; he'd been whinging for the sake of it. Lestrade shrugged off his petulant mood, and they walked on in silence.

"I'd offer you a penny for your thoughts, but I'm told inflation put a stop to that," he finally went on.

No response from Sherlock. A high, whinnying sound caught Lestrade's attention as they reached the junction of Back Church Lane and Commercial Road. Across the street, a group of four women were tottering along in the direction of Henriques Street. He watched them as he and Sherlock rounded the corner. None of them young or well-dressed; just the Ripper's type, especially if they were on the game. _Especially_ since all four of them were completely trolleyed.

"You think it'll be tonight?" he asked Sherlock. "He'll do something tonight?"

"I don't know," Sherlock muttered.

"But something's bothering you. Mind telling me what?" Lestrade paused under a streetlight to spark up a cigarette.

"There was no response," Sherlock said, once they'd moved on.

Lestrade let a bus roar past them before replying, "what, to our little jab about Pizer being the one who did it?"

"Yes. If the killer is the type he's shown himself to be, that _should_ have sent him into a rage."

"Doesn't mean he wasn't in one," Lestrade pointed out. "He could have—"

Sherlock grabbed hard at his arm, and before he could protest, he heard why: behind them, somewhere in Back Church Lane, a woman was screaming. Not the gratuitous horror-movie scream most people knew. This was a thin, high screech of pure terror; exactly, Lestrade thought, like a rabbit being attacked by a dog.

Sherlock leapt from the kerb, dodging another bus before it could merge into traffic and barely noticing as a red Audi whipped at the tails of his coat. Lestrade followed, glancing left at the last minute and stopping just short of a blue sedan that zipped past him. He did not see the car overtaking it.


	17. Saucy Jacky

John had decided to make his way to the Good Samaritan by taxi: Harry had a license but no car of her own, and might need his in an emergency. After texting Sherlock to let him know he was on his way, he sat in pensive silence in the back of the cab, politely brushing off the driver's attempts at making conversation. As the cab winded its way up Commercial Rd, the driver braked and John was jolted hard against the seat belt.

"What the—"

"Sorry," the driver said over his shoulder. "Didn't see that coming."

"You didn't see a set of traffic lights?"

The driver shook his head. "Lights are green up there," he said, pointing through the front windshield. "Have a look, though; people are getting out of their cars. I think there's been an accident."

John felt a flood of cold adrenaline in his chest. An accident? He was still a fair way from the Good Samaritan, and there was otherwise no real reason to suspect that anything was wrong with Sherlock or Greg, but… "Let me out just here," he demanded, reaching for the door. "How much do I owe you?"

He handed over the requested amount and hurried along the road toward where a small crowd were gathering. A grey Vauxhall Corsa was stopped in the middle of the road, emergency lights flashing, and two men in suits were directing traffic into the lanes around it. John's chest thumped. Lestrade was sitting in the road a few metres from the front of the Corsa, blood streaming down one temple over his face and neck. Sherlock was on his knees beside him, though he seemed mostly engaged in swatting away a pair of bystanders, an elderly couple who seemed more panicked than anyone else at the scene. John shoved his way through the crowd until he cleared the kerb and spilled into the road.

"Sherlock, what the hell—"

"Oh, thank God," Sherlock said. Then, to the elderly man who was still trying to move him away from Lestrade, "Are you deaf? I said _go and see if the driver is injured._ I'm not going to ask you again."

John barely noticed this little speech, nor the bystander himself. He got down on the road beside Lestrade, who was conscious and sitting up, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood from his temple with Sherlock's green scarf. He cupped Lestrade's chin in his hand and gently tipped his head up to better see the wound on his temple.

"I'm fine," Lestrade said thickly, through a mouthful of blood.

"Yeah, you're not fine. What happened?"

"Look around you and make a deduction," Sherlock snapped at him. "We have a damaged car, an injured man, and a crying driver. What do _you_ think happened?"

"Has someone called an ambulance?"

"No. We thought we'd sit in the middle of Commercial Road for a while instead."

John ignored this. "Greg? What day is it?"

"Wednesday, so don't panic," Lestrade mumbled. "I don't think she hit me as hard as she thought she did. Help me up."

"No," John said. "You're not moving until the ambulance gets here."

"John-"

"I'm glad to see you remember who I am; that's a start. You're a spinal injury risk, Greg. You shouldn't even be sitting up."

But by this time Lestrade was barely paying attention to John. "Sherlock, listen," he said, pausing to spit blood onto the bitumen beside him. "What we heard—"

Sherlock looked at him as if he'd gone crazy. "Oh," he finally said, as if the incident had become irrelevant. "That. You should probably not worry about that—it was more than likely nothing."

"Wait, what?" John looked up at Sherlock, who was now pacing, looking down Commercial Road in anticipation of the ambulance. "I've missed something. What did you hear?"

"Screaming," Sherlock said. "Coming from up in Back Church Lane."

"So you both ran into traffic to find out what it was. Well done." John would not admit, even to himself, the amount of times he'd blundered after Sherlock, often straight into traffic. That he'd not been hit himself was luck, not skill.

"For God's sake," Lestrade said. "Will someone go over and tell her to stop crying?"

He was referring to the driver of the Corsa, a woman who was probably in her early twenties and looked even younger. She was perched on a bike rack outside the Metropolitan University building across the street, sobbing hysterically. An older woman, one who probably didn't even know her, was giving her a hug.

"I'm not dying, and she's not going to prison," he went on. "My fault for crossing against the lights, and she barely bumped me."

John glanced back at the car. "If you got from over there to here," he said, "crumpled the front of the car and cracked the windshield, she hit you pretty hard, Greg."

Sherlock half-smiled. "You're coming along, John," he said.

"Nope," John replied, "Just a doctor who's seen a lot of accidents. Greg, I know you're going to find this embarrassing, but you need to lie down."

"What, right here on the road…?"

"Sorry. For your neck and spine, and to slow down that bleeding from your head—"

"Oh, God," Lestrade said, as if he hadn't heard this last remark. "One of you call Mel, quick. She's going to lose it if she finds out about this from someone else."

Sherlock had just located his phone in his pocket when the sound of wailing sirens floated up from toward Whitechapel High Street, and an ambulance, lights flashing, rounded a curve in the road.

* * *

"It was a mugging, Greg," Melissa announced dolefully, as if disappointed that the commotion in Back Church Lane hadn't been another gory murder. It was now just after midnight, and they were waiting in A&E at the Royal London. "Or so Donovan tells me. A woman named Georgia Phelan. Not a sex worker, just a twenty-year-old office assistant on her way to the Good Samaritan to meet a friend for her birthday. He wasn't even armed, just punched her in the face and snatched her bag. She started screaming like hell, and that was when both of you decided to run into traffic in a four-lane major arterial road."

She shot a filthy look in Sherlock's direction, but Sherlock, sitting in a plastic chair in one corner, was absorbed with reading a newspaper, or pretending to. John was down the corridor, trying to track down someone who'd release Lestrade's x-ray and CT scans. It had been nearly three hours since the accident. The scans had been done immediately on arrival, and for the past two hours, Lestrade had been sitting on a trolley bed, bay curtains closed around, quietly going stir-crazy.

"Did they get the guy who did it?" he asked Melissa.

"Barely," she said. "But yeah. He legged it while everyone was worried about you, actually, but Georgia gave chase and he blundered into two random guys, one of whom coathangered him."

"And…?"

"A Gary Hames. List of muggings and assault charges as long as my arm, but definitely not our guy. Still, he's in the lockup, and from what Donovan told me, he'll be there for a while."

"Is she okay?" he asked. "This Georgia Phelan, I mean."

"Oh, fine, I expect. The officers at Snow Hill have taken over her case, since it seems like it was a pretty straightforward incident. She might need a bit of dental work, depending on where he hit her, but I'm more worried about you at the moment. How are you feeling?"

The honest truth was that Lestrade felt fine, though he knew full well that this was mostly residual adrenaline and he'd feel like hell in a few hours. Just then the door swung open, and John came back into the room.

"Okay," he said. "Just spoke with the radiology department and your doctor. For some reason, you're being released tonight."

Lestrade ignored John's tone and looked at Melissa. "Told you so," he said.

"I'm with you, John," Melissa said. "Idiots, all of them. Does he _look_ like somebody who should be sent home with an aspirin?"

"Fairly sure they'll give him more than an aspirin." John watched as Sherlock threw down the newspaper in disgust and went to the window, through which a landscape of lights shone out of the darkness. "Do you think, Sherlock," he asked him carefully, "that this had anything to do with the Ripper?"

"Can we stop calling him that?" Sherlock said. "He's desperate for attention as it is, and people shouldn't have the luxury of choosing their own nicknames."

"What are you suggesting we go with?" John asked, genuinely curious.

"Something incredibly boring. 'The Whitechapel Killer' is factual. And no, I don't think Lestrade's accident had anything to do with the R—er, the Whitechapel Killer."

"But you're worried about something," Melissa said. "What?"

Sherlock turned to face her. "How long," he said, "before the killer realises the lead investigator in his case is in hospital?"

"Oh, great," Lestrade said, rubbing his temple out of habit and flinching as his fingers met a white dressing taped there. "Well, hopefully, I'll be back out and on the case before he hears I've even been in here… John, something going on with Molly…?"

"No…" John, looking at his phone screen, didn't glance up. "It's just that Harry was supposed to keep in touch and didn't. She probably just got distracted…"

"She does that," Melissa agreed.

"But I'm… I should go, if there's nothing else I can do here right now."

"Oh, God, of course," Lestrade said. "Go. If you need to tell Molly what happened, tell her I'm fine." He glanced at Melissa. "Because I am."

~o0o~

After John had left, Melissa nudged Sherlock, who'd gone back to pretending to be absorbed in the paper. "What about you?"

He looked up. "What do you mean?"

Behind Melissa's shoulder, Lestrade's phone bleeped out a text alert, but both she and Sherlock ignored it. "No offence," Melissa told Sherlock, "but we've got the world's only consulting detective taking up real estate in a hospital chair, and that's a waste—"

"Oh, no," Lestrade blurted out. "No. _Shit."_

"What's the matter?" Melissa asked him. Turning, she saw that he was staring at his phone screen in disbelief. "Oh, shit. You're kidding."

He shook his head. "Another one," he said hollowly. "Actually, um…"

Melissa snatched the phone out of Greg's hands and looked at the incoming anonymous text message that had come in a minute before:

 _I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip, you'll hear about Saucy Jacky's work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldn't finish straight off. Had not got time to get ears off for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again._

 _Jack the Ripper_

* * *

When John let himself into 221a the living-room light was on, as well as the TV. Harry was nowhere to be found and Molly was curled up on the sofa, fast asleep again.

He sighed.

He hadn't given much thought to where Molly was going to sleep during her convalescence; or rather, where he was going to sleep, since it was his opinion that Molly had full rights to their double bed, and it would somehow hurt her if he shared it with her. For a moment, he wondered if she'd arranged to fall asleep there before he came home, to avoid the awkward conversation.

He ran through his options: Put a blanket over her and claim the double bed for himself. Carry her to the bedroom, with or without waking her up…

Finally, he picked up the remote and turned the TV off, then went to the linen cupboard, pulled out a blanket, got a pillow off their bed and made himself a camp on the living room floor beside her. He'd just turned the lights off and was trying to get comfortable when he heard her stir.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay." She tossed her head on her pillow. "I'm not really tired. Slept for so long today."

"Harry?"

"Went to bed in her own flat… she was disappointed about Rochelle. How did it go?"

"Nobody got murdered," he said, deciding not to tell her about Greg's car accident until the morning, even if she was going to give him an I-can't-believe-you-didn't-tell-me lecture for it.

She relaxed against her pillows, taking a deep breath. "You don't have to sleep out here with me," she mumbled.

"I've slept in worse places," he said. Then, after a pause, "I missed you, Lolly. When you weren't… here."

"I missed you too," she said. "It… at the hospital, I used to wake up at night sometimes and…"

She let the sentence finish itself in the silence between them.

"Do you know," she went on, "It hasn't even been two weeks? Two weeks tomorrow."

Two weeks. It had already felt like six months. "We'll have to have cake," was all John said.

Molly snorted into her pillow.

"No, I'm serious," he said. "Remember, we used to do that with Charlie—have cakes for her on the twenty-second every month, all the way up to Christmas?"

"That was just so _you_ could have cake," she said, a smile in her voice.

"You never said no to it," he teased. "Anyway, so we missed the first week, but that's what I was thinking. Week birthdays. With cake."

"We can't have cake every _week_. I'll end up the size of a house. I put on so much weight with the twins…"

She hadn't, but John decided not to fight this battle in the middle of the night and shift the subject instead. Before he could think of something non-controversial to talk about, Molly said, "Do you remember the night we brought Charlie home for the first time?"

"Oh, God," he said, chuckling. "I had missions in Kandahar that were less stressful. I couldn't believe someone had let us take this tiny human home when we hadn't a clue what to do with her."

"I didn't want to fall asleep that first night," Molly said, "because I didn't want to stop looking at her."

"Not that we could have fallen asleep anyway," he said. "I think she screamed for a solid week." He reached over and traced a lazy pattern on one of Molly's wrists. "We'd got over the novelty by then."

He felt her cold fingers curl around his.

"Molly…? Oh, Molly, come on…".

"Sorry," she choked. "I was just… I was just thinking how… how unfair it is that we didn't get to take our babies home… and… I just thought…"

John sat up again, thinking. "Okay," he said, squeezing her hand again. "Get dressed in something warm and we'll go to the hospital."

"… Now?"

"Sure. Parents have all-hours access, remember? Just let me ask Harry to keep an eye on Charlie." He got up, passing through the kitchen on the way to 221c to wake Harry. The microwave clock glowed eerie green into the darkness. It was 1:12am.

* * *

"Donovan," Lestrade barked down the line, as he carefully got into the passenger-side door of the car outside the hospital. "Another one. He's got another one?"

"Henriques Street," Sherlock said from the back seat, at the same time Donovan did. Never a fan of talking on the phone, he seemed to be texting at a rate of knots.

"Why do I know that name?" Lestrade asked either of them, or both.

"You probably saw it just before you got cleaned up on the road tonight," Donovan was saying. "Next street along from Back Church Lane. A woman named Elizabeth Stride's been found lying in the carpark of the International Worker's Educational Club."

"What's that when it's at home?"

"Communist sympathisers from Eastern Europe," Sherlock said, at the same time that Donovan said she didn't know.

Lestrade reached around the seat to swat at Sherlock, wincing at the spasm of pain this sent up his arm. "The victim," he said. "Tell me about her."

"Swedish-born, forty-five years old, according to the contents of her wallet. Had her throat cut."

Lestrade glanced back at Sherlock—then winced again. This time it was his neck that had given out. "Just her throat cut?" he asked. "Not like Annie Chapman?"

"Nope. But the guy who found her, a Louis Diemschutz, reckons she was barely dead when he came across her, so the killer may have been interrupted. We're following that up right now."

"We? Who's there with you?"

"The usual suspects. I brought Cowley with me, and Halloran, Dyer, Castelli, Patel. We're still waiting on a few of the others."

"So you're in charge?"

She hesitated.

"Oh, God, come on," he groaned. "Who's got it?"

"You're not going to like this. June Merivale."

* * *

Henriques Street turned out to be a dingy, semi-industrial street winding from Commercial Road, parallel to Back Church Lane. As they drove past, Lestrade saw that the scene of his earlier accident had been cleared and traffic was moving normally, but there was a patch of dried blood still visible on the bitumen.

"You're really not up to this right now, Greg," Melissa said, as if she'd noticed it, too.

"Promise I'm not going to be here all night. I just want to see for myself what's going on," he said.

From the back seat, Sherlock snorted.

"Yeah, I don't need any commentary from the Peanut Gallery," Lestrade said, deciding not to swat at him again. What he really wanted was for John to come back and take over that part of things—he certainly didn't have the energy to play Genius's Handler just then. Sherlock had texted John, but refused to call him; so far as Lestrade knew, John hadn't replied yet. "What's going on with you back there, anyway?" he asked. "Got it solved yet?"

"For God's sake," Sherlock said. "I'm researching the victim. She had a stillborn daughter to an unknown father when she was twenty-three; married a man named John Stride a few years later, but was widowed four years ago. Most recently she was in an abusive relationship with a man who goes by the charming name of Michael Kidney."

Lestrade frowned. "Where are you getting all this from?" he asked.

"Homeless Network," Sherlock said complacently. "They're brilliant for street gossip. According to them, she was a confirmed liar with a habit of telling people she'd lost her husband and children in the 7/7 bombings."

"She definitely didn't?"

"None of the listed victims have any link to her. More than likely, it was a sob story she told people so they'd give her money."

"So she wasn't a prostitute?"

"She occasionally exchanged sex for money, but that doesn't make you a sex worker, apparently. Made her living as a part-time cleaner, from begging, and from Michael Kidney."

"And it's never the partner, you reckon, no matter how much of an abusive waste of space he is." Lestrade groaned as Melissa put the car into park and turned the headlights off. He reached for the car door. "Great."

The carpark where Elizabeth Stride's body had been found was reached from Henriques Street by way of a large corrugated iron gate. Blocking it was a black Range Rover, headlights on, the driver's door hanging open; a dark-haired man Lestrade thought must have been the driver was standing to one side with Susannah Cowley, hugging his thin arms around himself. Lestrade, crossing the road toward them with Sherlock on his heels, found most of the usual suspects collected in the carpark, faithfully doing their work: Donovan, Dyer, Halloran, Castelli, Patel. DCI June Merivale. Her recent promotion meant that she could have easily palmed off the leg-work to someone else, but there she was, large as life, standing next to the white tent that concealed the remains. Seeing Lestrade, she gave a shrill whistle.

"Oy," she called. "What the bloody hell are _you_ doing here?"

"My job," he said.

She marched over, flicking the crime-scene tape up to duck under it. As she did, Lestrade muttered, "Sherlock, she's about to give me a bollocking. Go over to Donovan, have a look at this body we've got, and don't let her brush you off."

He saw Sherlock move past him out of the corner of his eye, but Merivale had reached him by this time. As usual, she was in spotless order, easily identifiable by her red overcoat. Lestrade, looking at her immaculate hair and knowing how long it took Hayley to iron hers into that kind of perfection, wondered whether Merivale just naturally looked like that at midnight on a Wednesday. She beckoned him and started walking out toward the gates that led out onto the street.

"Come on," she said. "Let's talk, Greg."

He groaned in spirit. Merivale wouldn't normally take him, with great pains, somewhere the rest of his team couldn't hear her. This wasn't going to be good. As they exited the yard he glanced toward the car, where Melissa was waiting, but could barely see her in the glare off the streetlight she was parked under.

Well-lit. Now that was interesting…

"Greg," Merivale said. "I'm not going to mince words on this one. You're off the case."

He stared at her. _"What?"_

"I'm serious, so don't try me… and stop giving me that look."

"What look?"

"You've got a daughter, right? You'd recognise it. The I-hate-you, you-never-let-me-have-any-fun look. Would you let one of your subordinates continue working a case after they'd been hit by a car and taken to hospital in an ambulance?"

Lestrade clenched his jaw. Bloody Sherlock and his ambulances. "For God's sake," he said. "The car was barely _moving_ when it hit me. It knocked me over, and I've got a couple of scrapes and bruises. That's all."

"Did you get that knock on your temple from impact with the road or the car, Greg?"

Since he hadn't the slightest memory of how he'd hit his head, he decided to ignore Merivale's question. "Come on, June, please, don't do this. This is my case."

"And it's my job to boot you _off_ a case if I don't think you're up to it. And you're clearly not. I'm sorry, but you're just not. It's not your fault, but it's not mine either."

He heaved a sigh, or would have, if it wasn't for the ache in his chest. "Who's replacing me?"

"Me, until the morning. Then Eamon Alexander, most likely."

"Oh, no," he said, holding one hand out like he was directing traffic. "No."

She raised one eyebrow. "Do you have a problem with Alexander?"

"I don't, but Christ, Donovan does. It's hard enough to get her to work with people she _likes_ , June. If you put Alexander in charge of her when you know bloody well he just did her out of a promotion, she's going to take her bat and ball and go home."

"Okay," Merivale said. "Just which DI meets Princess Donovan's standards?"

"I do. And _only_ me." Lestrade had an idea that Donovan would work with Gregson and probably with Bradstreet or Hopkins as well, but pointing it out wouldn't help his case.

"Just why are you so determined—"

He gave Merivale his phone, the screen lit up with his text service. She took it in one gloved hand and looked it over in silence.

"That's why," he said. "That's why, June. That's twice this bastard's contacted me directly."

"Have you spoken to tech about this?" she asked him.

"Not yet, I'll let them bag it on the way back. _Even though that'll leave me without a mobile for the foreseeable._ "The first messages he sent were handwritten notes. I don't know why he's deviated from the pattern, but I want the chance to find out, and more's the point, he's talking about a _double murder._ You're sure this is only one?"

"Sure," she said. "For the moment. A Liz Stride. Swedish national. Middle-aged prostitute, like the others. Throat cut."

"Then you need someone to go out and look—"

"Look _where,_ Greg? He hasn't exactly given us good clues."

"No, you're right; he's given us bugger-all. Which means you're going to need all the manpower you can get, especially someone who's already been working the case and knows it as well as I do."

June looked him over in silence. "Go home," she said. "Get eight hours of solid sleep, then call me. If you're feeling well enough by then, I can put you on desk duties."

Desk duties. The Met equivalent of sitting on the sideline.

"June—"

"I'm not budging on this one, Greg. We can sit here and argue all night, but frankly, you need to be in bed and I need to work out who killed this woman, so let's not, okay? Go home. Sleep. Then call me. Very easy instructions."

Lestrade looked around desperately. "Okay," he finally said. "Just. Sherlock Holmes—"

"Oh God. I knew you were going to say that."

"He's good. You know he's good."

She groaned, putting her face in her hands. "He'd _better_ be good, because if he misbehaves I'm sending him home, too. Final concession, Greg. Home. Now."

As he trudged back to where Melissa was waiting for him in the car, Lestrade drew a sigh of relief. Sherlock Holmes was on the case. That was something. It could very well be everything.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks, again, for reading. The modern Henriques Street was known as Berner Street in Victorian times, and I've described it as a mish-mash of the modern and Victorian street: the IWEC that once stood there is long gone. The 'Saucy Jacky' letter is also a real letter, and I've reproduced it here verbatim. It was received by the Central News Agency on October 1, 1888._


	18. Double Event

The crime scene might have belonged to June Merivale, now, but it was Donovan's in everything but name alone. Sherlock found her by the evidence tent, directing the other detectives and a half-dozen uniformed officers who had just turned up on the scene. Seeing Sherlock, she dragged him a few feet further in the carpark, behind a beaten-up old Peugeot and out of Merivale's line of sight.

"Is Lestrade okay?" she demanded.

"For someone who was just hit by a car, yes." Sherlock lit a cigarette, ignoring Donovan's disgust. "CT scans showed no damage to his skull or brain and no significant internal bleeding. Two left-hand ribs are cracked and his sternum may also be. Walking casualty."

"So Merivale just walked him off his own case." Donovan glanced over to Merivale, who was returning to the evidence tent. Behind her, Lestrade was on his way back to his car.

"So it appears."

"Shit."

"It's not ideal, but we can bring this case to its conclusion without Lestrade," Sherlock said. "I've worked with Merivale before."

"So have I. We'll never be best friends, but that's not my point."

"Which is…?"

"We made a mess of that Shakespeare case," Donovan said, "and a lot of it was because Merivale got rung in at the last minute to lead a team that wasn't hers. It threw everybody off. Duties and roles got mixed up. Evidence wasn't bagged and submitted properly. It was a nightmare, and we don't need it on this case."

She glanced at Cowley, and Sherlock understood. The 'Shakespeare case' had got Detective Sergeant Lauren Jones killed, and whether her death could have been prevented was probably keeping all of her colleagues up some nights.

"There's nothing we can do to prevent it," he said, "so I suggest we minimise it. Ignore Merivale for now. Show me the body."

~o0o~

Elizabeth Stride seemed different than the previous victims, Sherlock thought. Thinner and taller, with a finely-moulded face and hair streaming back from her forehead. The only injury about her seemed to be a partially slit throat. He spent a long time examining it in detail, pulling back the rubbery flesh with his gloved fingers.

"What are you thinking, Genius?" Donovan asked him.

"Nothing relevant to the case," he said.

"No, seriously, it might be, so out with it."

He gave her a filthy look. "If you must know, I was thinking she might have been beautiful once."

Donovan looked back at the bedraggled corpse and nodded. "Yeah," she said. "She probably was. So she's not one of your homeless network?"

He shook his head. "But I've seen her before, so she's connected with them in some way."

"Please," she said, "it'd be lovely if you could tell me this Michael Kidney guy did it, that he's the Ripper we've been looking for, and that we can arrest him and go home."

Sherlock shook his head. "This is the work of a serial killer. As a rule, serial killers don't kill their family, and domestic abusers do not turn into serial killers."

"John Christie killed his wife," she said.

"John Christie killed his wife because she was onto him," he said. "It was damage control, not pleasure."

"Well, maybe that's what happened here?" she continued, undaunted. "This woman, Liz Stride, she finds out her boyfriend's been killing these women and confronts him, so he offs her."

He rolled his eyes. "Donovan," he said. "You're too well trained for this. Where are the overwhelming majority of domestic violence victims killed?"

"At home," she admitted.

"At someone's home, anyhow, and the murder is generally covered up or made to look like something else. Whoever this killer is, he's clever. And a clever person would not respond to being found out as a serial killer by murdering their ex and making it look like the work of that same killer. Spouses and former spouses are questioned first. They'd be drawing attention to themselves." Seeing a shadow on the canvas out of the corner of his eye, he unzipped the tent and stepped out, with Donovan following suit. Susannah Cowley was standing there, notebook in hand.

"Okay," she said. "Mr. Diemschutz lodges upstairs at the club, and says he turned in the driveway a few minutes after one. The car headlights caught her lying here, and at first thought it was a bundle of discarded clothes until he saw her arm. Stopped the car and got out to look, and here's the really interesting thing: his dog went mental."

Donovan looked at Sherlock. "A dog wouldn't react like that to a corpse," she said. "Not even a cadaver dog."

"The dog was barking because there was somebody else here in the yard," Sherlock said. "Someone Louis Diemschutz didn't see."

"The murderer?"

"Almost certainly. Hiding around the side of the building. When Diemschutz went to call us, he escaped behind the lane and went up to Commercial Road."

"Covered in blood?"

"He wouldn't have been. He barely had time to cut her throat before he was interrupted. It's possible that she was actually alive for a few moments after Diemschutz found her, but he couldn't have saved her."

Donovan considered. "Well," she said, "if we're looking for whether he's gone and done another one…"

She never finished her thought. Jake Dyer, a little bounce in his step, came around the corner from an alley servicing the club from the north. "Another witness," he said, jerking his thumb behind him. Looking back, Sherlock could see a young man in baggy jeans and a cap waiting in the shadows, looking as suspicious as if he were the Ripper himself.

"Yeah?" Donovan prompted him.

"Yeah, an Israel Schwartz. Reckons he was walking along here an hour ago and saw a woman he described as Liz Stride standing right here in the gateway, talking with a man. He wasn't paying much attention until the guy tried to drag her into the street, then pushed her down onto the concrete."

Sherlock and Donovan looked at one another.

"And…?"

Dyer rolled his eyes. "Big hero, this one. He figured it was a domestic, didn't want to get involved, and crossed to the other side of the street… hang on, Donovan, let me finish before you go over and beat him up, 'cause here's where it gets _really_ interesting. On the side of the street he crossed to, just there on the cross-corner, he saw another guy standing around, lighting a cigarette. The first guy, the one who pushed the woman over, called to the second guy: _Lipski."_

"Lipski?" Donovan raised her eyebrows. "Oh, great."

In the days just after Charlie's birth, a young Polish Jew named Israel Lipski had fatally poisoned his young mistress, Miriam Angel, and tried to poison himself. He'd been found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment for his crime, but it had been a bittersweet conviction, bringing out a wave of anti-Semitism both in the press and on the streets. And anyhow, it seemed a very different killing to the Ripper's.

"So what did our guy mean by calling that out?" Donovan went on.

"I was kind of hoping you'd tell me," Jake said. "An insult, maybe, or a threat."

"Signal," Cowley suggested.

"Yeah, maybe. Whatever it was, the second guy gave chase. Followed Schwartz all the way up to Commercial Road, where he lost him in the crowd."

Sherlock shut his eyes, thinking hard.

"Sherlock," Donovan said. "Could this be the work of two people?"

"Did he give a description of either man?" Sherlock asked Dyer.

"Yep. Not great, but it's something." Dyer consulted his notes again. "He says the guy who pushed Liz Stride down was about thirty, and short; barely taller than Stride. Fair complexion, dark hair, stubble, full face, broad shouldered; you know, a nuggety type, I guess. He said he had a dark jacket and trousers on and a black cap. Nothing in his hands. The second guy was a bit older, maybe thirty-five; just under six foot tall, fair complexion, light brown hair, dressed in a dark overcoat and trousers, with a cigarette in his hand."

"Word's spreading fast," Donovan said. "And we can't just keep finding corpses. We're no closer to catching the killer than we were yesterday or the day before—"

"Donovan," Sherlock said. "We are like miners crawling through a tunnel, etching out every inch with pickaxes."

"Very poetic. What's that mean?"

"It means we could very well give up and go home when we're two inches away from the motherlode," he said, ignoring her tone. He pointed to the wall of the club and walked a little closer to it, with Donovan, Cowley and Dyer following.

"What's that?" Dyer asked.

"My whiteboard," Sherlock replied.

"Your what…?"

"It's not my fault you can't see it. We need to get this out in logical progression. Constable Barrett found a suspicious man outside of George Yard Buildings on the night Martha Tabram was murdered. He described him as mid twenties, five-foot-nine or so, dark hair, fair complexion."

"Okay, so…?"

"Elizabeth Long saw a man talking with Annie Chapman just before _she_ was killed. She described him as roughly the same height as Barrett's man, but she says he was over forty years old."

"He had his back to her," Donovan said. "And he was wearing a hat. And unlike a copper, she had no particular reason to note what he looked like."

"Exactly. I believe Beth Long did see the Ripper with his victim, but her description of him is almost useless to us, except with the detail of the deerstalker. One of the men Israel Schwartz described could be the same man Constable Barrett and Beth Long saw; the other, the one who gave chase, was very clearly not. The average person can't estimate a stranger's height down to the last inch. But they _do_ know the difference between a man who is five foot seven, and a man who is nearly six feet tall—"

He broke off. Merivale had been over talking to Louis Diemschutz, and her phone had gone off while he'd been speaking. Now she was hurrying toward them, almost at a run.

"What's—"

"Found the other one," she barked. "Mitre Square, nearly a mile away."

"Dead?"

"Very dead. The PC who found her's having a hissy fit down the radio, something about her face being cut off. Cowley, you stay here. Donovan, Sherlock, Dyer, I need all three of you to go over to Mitre Square."

"Right," Donovan said. "I'm driving."

Sherlock shook his head. "Ten minutes by car at this time of night," he said. "If you follow me on foot I can get us there in eight. Don't talk. Just keep up."

* * *

"We're at the hospital," John explained down the line to Sherlock eleven minutes later. Since phones were strictly forbidden in the NICU, and he'd fallen afoul of the nursing sister on duty when his had rung, he'd gone into the waiting room to answer the call. Molly had left the twins sleeping soundly in their incubator and followed him out.

"The hospital?" Sherlock repeated. "John, for God's sake, if something—"

"Okay, sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out like that. There's no emergency. We…" He glanced at Molly, who was standing waiting, arms folded. "Just wanted to see the kids, that's all. So what's going on? Another murder?"

"Two, but it seems the second is more significant than the first. Can you meet us at Mitre Square?"

"Not really." John met Molly's gaze as she mouthed _yes, go_ at him. "Sort of, you know, family time right now."

Molly made a pushing motion in thin air. _Go._

"Where did you say it was?" John found himself asking down the line, searching his pockets for something to write with and scribbling out the address Sherlock dictated—a fair distance from the other victims, close to Fenchurch Street.

"But you… uh," Sherlock said. "You… don't have to join us."

"Looks like I do," John said, exchanging another glance with Molly. "But I'm not hurrying, Sherlock. Forty minutes, maybe. I'll be in touch."

"Another murder…?" Molly ventured once he'd hung up the line.

"Two. I'm sure they'll solve it without me," John said, leading the way back through the security doors into the NICU. He could not conceal the iron undertone in his voice, but he turned back to the incubator, letting Louise squeeze his finger. "So I was thinking," he said. "I know the doctors are saying it might be a month yet, but to be honest, I think they might be exaggerating."

She raised one eyebrow.

"Yes, I know," he said. "I don't have any experience with premature infants. I'm not even a paediatrician. But look at them."

"I'm looking at them, John," she said with a sad little smile. "They're tiny."

"Charlie was tiny," he pointed out. "And once we get Louise on track with her breathing, being tiny is the only thing they're up against. We'll be organising a christening before you know it."

"You said they've already been christened…?"

This was true, though John looked back on the event with mixed feelings. The twins had been less than three hours old, and Molly had barely been stabilised, when he'd called the Catholic chaplain on duty at St James', in case of… well. In case. His priorities had surprised himself more than anyone else that morning. He was, to all appearances, not practising and certainly not devout. The last time he'd been in a church had been for Charlie's christening the year before, and he reasoned with himself that that had been sort of a bargain with God for Sherlock's life. A man had to keep his promises.

He'd insisted the twins be christened the day they were born for similar reasons, and still felt lingering guilt that he'd done it without Molly's express permission, though she'd gone along with Charlie's without any protest. This was the first time she'd brought up the twins' christening since he'd told her about it.

"Yeah, but that wasn't a real christening," he said.

"Will the priest do another one? I mean, it's blasphemous to do it twice, isn't it…?"

"Father Bautista will do whatever Sherlock tells him," John said. "We solved a pretty spiny case for him a few years ago. Could've had the whole parish in tatters."

Molly smiled with him. "Perhaps hold off on setting a date yet anyhow," she said. "I'm, uh. I'm just going to find a nurse who can help me lift them out for a cuddle. Are you off with Sherlock, then?"

A new consideration had just occurred to him. "What, and take the car?"

"I can find my own way home. Taxi. It's okay."

But it wasn't okay. Something hot flushed up in him, and he swallowed down on it. "Just why are you so desperate for me to go away?" he asked her.

Molly's eyes widened. "Sorry," she blurted, "What?"

"You just got home from hospital," he said. "You can barely walk on your own yet, and you can't drive. We're back here in the middle of the night trying to spend family time with our _sick children_. Then Sherlock calls me about the case and you're all but pushing me out the door. Is there something you're not telling me?"

 _"What?!_ John, just what are you implying—"

"I'm not implying anything. It's a simple question."

"Which one?" she fired back. "First you asked me why I was so 'desperate for you to go away'. Then you asked me if there was something I wasn't telling you, which sounds like you're implying I don't want you here because—"

"Nope. 'John, please drop all of your obligations to me and to the kids so you can go off and play detective all night' sounds like you don't want me here, Molly."

"That's why," she said, pointing for emphasis. " _That's_ why I need you to go out and solve this crime with Sherlock. Your _obligations_. For God's sake, John, I don't want to hear any more about my _needs_ or your _obligations_ , because you're turning into a martyr and you're making it my fault!"

"I'm not. I'm—"

"—I don't want you to sit at home with the babies and feel sorry for yourself because you can't go out and do things with Sherlock like you used to because _mean, horrible Molly just had to have another baby, and couldn't even do that right_."

"I could be wrong," he said, "but I remember being there when we _decided together_ to have another baby—"

"And I just thought, if you and Sherlock went off and solved a case together you wouldn't resent me and the twins so much for tying you down—"

"Nope," John said, shaking his head. "You're just being ridiculous now, so we're not having this argument."

"Yes we _are,_ John. And you know how I hate having arguments. But if we don't have this one now, we're going to have a _worse_ one and I don't know if we'll be able to fix it…"

He laughed bitterly. "Where'd you get that, your therapist?"

"You might think that because I don't say things, I don't _notice_ things, and that's not true," she said, closing her fingers around his wrist and giving it a little shake. " _I see you._ I see how you don't sleep properly and you… sort of… shove your food around your plate… and you take calls and text messages you don't talk to me about, and I thought I'd be patient and let you come to me in your own time, but I can't anymore. It's too important. I need to know what's going on. Please. _Please_ tell me."

John stopped. Then he gently prised her fingers off his wrist and took her hands in his, giving them a squeeze.

"Listen, Molly. You're my wife," he said. "I took vows on our wedding day, and I took them seriously. I still do. And one of those vows was that I would never deceive you."

She swallowed hard.

"I also said I'd never hurt you," he went on.

"You're hurting me now."

"And I'm sorry for that, but I'm in damage control. Do you remember, we used to say, 'I know a thing. Please don't ask me to tell you'? Don't ask me to tell you this. Not yet."

She withdrew her hands from his and swiped at her flushed cheek. "Please go," she said softly.

John pulled a set of keys out of his pocket, twisted two off the ring, and put them in her palm. "Front door and flat door," he said. "Have you got enough money on you for a taxi?"

"Yes." Another swipe at her face. John gave her no real farewell, only a nod; he'd got to the security door before she called after him. "John—"

"Oh, no." He rounded on her. " _No._ Don't you _dare_ push me away, then ask me when I'm coming home. I'll be home when I'm ready. See you then, whenever it is."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Louis Diemschutz's and Israel Schwartz's testimonies are virtually verbatim, only removing details that would clearly set this in the 19th century (e.g., Louis Diemschutz entered the stableyard in a horse and cart, and it was his horse that played havoc.) Schwartz really did testify that he was chased at the word "Lipski". It's thought to have been used as an anti-Semitic slur. Israel Lipski was a real murderer, and so was John Reginald Christie. Both have Wikipedia articles._


	19. Working Left Handed

Mitre Square turned out to be a small, cramped space, the convergence of a quartet of warehouses just off Mitre Road. John parked the car as close as he could and walked up to the crime scene. The handover officers seemed to know who he was, and had no hesitation letting him past the police tape barrier. Looking around, he saw Sherlock standing in one corner of the square, under the eaves of a neighbouring office building. He was talking to a young uniformed police officer who was in tears.

Not Sherlock's strength, talking to traumatised witnesses. John made his way over just in time to hear the officer say, "But I checked!"

Seeing his face for the first time, John stopped and literally took a step back. It was PC Jack Neil, who had been one of the first to find the body of Mary Ann Nichols.

"Sherlock, hi," John said. "What's going on?"

"Killed another one," Sherlock said grimly, ignoring Neil's sobbing. "Catherine Eddowes. Forty-six. Mother of three."

"… And one of your homeless network."

Sherlock nodded. "I knew her as Kate Conway, her married name. Intelligent woman with a short temper and a drinking problem."

"Oh, shit." John glanced toward the tent that housed the body. "And you… Jack Neil, is it? You found her? How did that happen? This is a fair walk from your usual patch."

"I'm covering for Stevens," Neil got out. "Mr. Holmes, I swear to you…"

"Maybe instead of swearing you should sit down for a bit," John said, pointing to the steps to a nearby building that housed a call centre. He glanced up at the dozens of dark windows. Obviously wasn't a 24 hour call centre, which was a shame. How could a murder happen somewhere overlooked by so many tall buildings?

Neil plonked himself down, biting the back of one hand. John glanced at the tent again. Exactly how far had the sick bastard gone this time? Neil had been as calm as anything when he'd found Mary Ann Nichols.

"Start at the beginning," Sherlock said. Then, meeting John's glance, he offered, "… Please."

Neil cleared his throat. "I start my shift at midnight," he said. "My patrol starts at Duke Street. Went through to Heneage Lane, Bury Street, Creechurch Lane, Leadenhall Street, Mitre Street, then in here, out again, Mitre Street, King Street, St. James Place."

"How long does that take you?" Sherlock asked.

"Fifteen minutes if I don't have a reason to stop. I did it straight for an hour tonight, then I was working left-handed.'"

"What's that?" Sherlock asked him.

When he hesitated to blow his nose, John said, "It's walking your patrol in reverse. Puts people off if they're watching you and trying to time where you'll be and when. Did your beat sergeant order you to work left-handed?"

He nodded.

"Did you do it the whole time, or change?"

"I changed it up halfway through." Neil blew his nose again. "Just after one o'clock."

Sherlock and John looked at one another. "No," Sherlock said.

"Hey?"

"Oh, of course you changed halfway through," Sherlock said, waving his hand dismissively. "What's incredibly interesting is that you did it, and the killer still eluded you."

"I tried—"

"Sherlock, stop," John said. "Just tell me what's going on? From the top?"

Sherlock, exasperated, led John over to the tent covering the body. From inside it, they heard Donovan call out, "Hey, Sherlock. Has John got here?"

"At long last," John himself replied, clambering into the tent.

Catherine Eddowes had been a sturdy, dark-haired woman in life, with a strong jaw fine, intelligent line of mouth. She lay on her back, with her head turned toward her left shoulder, arms straight by her sides as if they'd fallen there. She would almost, John thought, have seemed peaceful, but for the extent of her injuries. Her throat was slashed across, and although the wound was clotted with blood, it was clearly deep. Her shirt, a bright yellow, ugly thing of cheap satin, was pulled up and her black mini-skirt pulled down, abdomen emptied out, as if with an ice-cream scoop. A severed little pile of intestines sat in the crook of her left arm. The remainder of them had been pulled out over her right shoulder.

"Like Annie Chapman," John said, and Sherlock nodded.

"But he's gone further this time," Donovan pointed out unnecessarily.

"A lot further." John leaned in closer to examine what was left of the woman's face. Bracket-shaped wounds had been carved just under her eyes, and the soft part of her nose sliced off. And there was something else…

"That text Lestrade got," John said. "Something about cutting her ear off? Because most her right ear's missing."

"And so is part of her shirt." Sherlock dropped down on his haunches to inspect the damage, running his fingers over the damaged satin. "Cut off with a knife."

"Why?"

Sherlock glanced over at the dead woman's gaping abdominal cavity. "I think you'll find," he said, "he's been stealing things again."

John winced. Then, after a breath, he said, "So what's this got to do with Neil changing his patrol halfway through?"

"The killer couldn't have known that," Sherlock said. "There was exactly forty-five minutes between the time Louis Diemschutz found Liz Stride's body and when Neil found Catherine Eddowes's. Let's say the killer left Henriques Street at 1:00am exactly. It would have taken him ten minutes at the least to get to Mitre Square, and possibly fifteen, since there's no evidence he was heading here in particular. Catherine was found by accident."

"So we're up to 1:15am when he meets Catherine," John said.

"He brought her here for sex," Sherlock said. "Let's say it took him five minutes to convince her to have sex with him and bring her here in relative privacy, and her throat is slit at 1:20am _at the earliest_. How long do you suppose it would have taken him to do all this?"

John looked, thinking. "Ten minutes," he finally said, "if he wasn't being very particular about it. The face could have been done in a lot less."

"But he was enjoying himself over her face," Sherlock said. "Taking as much time as possible. Jack Neil told me he passed through Mitre Square at 1:30am and saw nothing."

"Do you believe him?"

"I believe he saw nothing. Whether that was because he didn't go into the square as he said he did, or didn't go in at the time he said, or failed to check the square properly, is another matter. If it was the latter, he could very well have been in the square at the same time as the killer."

"This is ridiculous," John said. "Why the hell is he always one step ahead of us?"

"You're really not going to like this," Sherlock said, taking a breath. "But the answer is: luck. He's not the evil genius he thinks he is. He's incredibly _lucky_. Even the best detective in the world can't contend with the universe."

"He's killing at a rate of one a night," Donovan pointed out. "What, is he going to break cover and go berserk in a shopping centre tomorrow?"

"Hey may," Sherlock said smilelessly.

"You're not serious."

"It's unlikely. He's motivated by psychosexual satisfaction from mutilating prostitutes, not from killing large numbers of random passersby. I think he's far more likely to go on with what he's clearly enjoying now."

Donovan swore under her breath.

"But not if I catch him first," Sherlock said. "Which I will."

"And how are you going to do that?" Donovan asked him. "Because I don't mean to be critical, but so far all of your ideas have been shit."

When Sherlock's response was a withering look, John said, "Anyway, where's Dyer?"

"Merivale went to rec the area, took Jake with her," Donovan said. "Why, I have no idea. It's pretty obvious the killer's long gone."

* * *

Jake Dyer felt like a schoolboy enduring recess detention. He'd rarely worked with June Merivale, but what he knew of her he didn't particularly like. All the same, when she'd zeroed in on him to be the one to accompany her on a search of the surrounding area, sending Patel and Halloran in the other direction, there wasn't a lot he could do to refuse. Luckily, she'd decided they should split up for time efficiency, which at least gave him breathing space.

They reached Goulston Street, and Dyer had gone in, while Merivale had continued up Whitechapel High Street. He wandered along the well-lit, wide road, wondering to himself if there were any shops up this way open in the middle of the night and prepared to donate a cup of coffee to a tired copper.

No such luck. Goulston Street housed shops, but they were closed; he wandered past closed shutters of grocery shops and coffee shops of conventional hours, past the Petticoat Lane markets and the ugly red-brick building that was now, according to the signs draped in front of it, home to the London Metropolitan University.

Something caught his eye.

Just a small, forlorn little bundle, lying in the driveway of the underground university carpark. The streets in this area were strewn with all sorts of litter and graffiti, and Dyer was never able to properly explain later what made him go over and have a look at this particular example.

* * *

June Merivale had had more luck than Dyer and found an all-hours coffee truck just around the corner. Ordinarily, she told herself, she wouldn't slack off so obviously on the job as to stop for coffee, but she'd already put in a fourteen-hour day before being called to take on Lestrade's case, and finding two corpses in one night would fray the nerves of the most hardened DCI. She'd just sat down on a nearby low brick wall to enjoy her straight white when her phone rang. Once. She was too fast to allow it a second ring.

"Merivale," she said, after a hasty swallow.

"Marm." Jake Dyer sounded agitated. "Where are you?"

"Bus shelter. Just around the corner."

"I'm at the London Metropolitan University building," he barked. "Get people here!"

"Hang on, calm down," she said, though she'd got up and was making her way over to the traffic lights at very close to a run. "What do you mean, get people there? An ambulance? Officers? What have you found?"

"You know how you said part of her shirt was missing?" Dyer blurted. "Found it. And I know why he took it."

* * *

After reporting the find, there wasn't much Dyer could do but preserve the scene and wait. Merivale arrived a minute later; she could move fast, for her age.

"Patel and Halloran are on their way," she said as soon as she was close enough to be in earshot. "What—"

Dyer pointed to the bundle; a scrap of fabric, the cheap lemon-coloured satin of the late Catherine Eddowes's shirt, now almost entirely red-brown with stains. "I don't know if you can see," he said. "Something in it. An organ."

"Looks like a kidney," Merivale said, stooping to look without touching it. "God help us. Why would he leave that here?"

"Maybe to draw attention to that." Dyer gestured with his torch. Merivale, rising to her feet, read out the chalk message that had been written neatly on the bricks above the shirt:

 _The Juwes are_

 _The Men that_

 _Will not_

 _be Blamed_

 _for nothing_

Merivale took a step back.

"That's got to be a clue, right?" Dyer was practically bouncing. "Don't know anybody who spells 'Jews' like that. And the weird capitals. About the last letter, Sherlock said—"

"Wipe it off," Merivale said.

Dyer, cut off mid-sentence, stoped and looked at her. "Sorry, what?"

"I said wipe that off the wall, now."

"What? Why? It's a clue—"

"Here's a clue for you, Dyer. There are a few thousand people living and working in the surrounding square mile. They're a mixed bunch. And guess what's just around the corner? A bloody synagogue."

"Marm—"

"We've already heard some of that tonight. _Lipski._ If someone is doing this to try to stir up trouble in the Jewish community, and they get what they're after, then we're never going to catch this guy. Get that off the wall before someone else sees it, puts it on bloody Twitter and starts a riot."

"But—"

"No buts," she said. "There's nothing to suggest this is connected to our case, anyway. No references to a crime, no declaration of guilt. The East End is full of racist and anti-Semitic graffiti."

Dyer was still looking at her, now more out of curiosity than resentment. Merivale was well able to reach the graffiti herself, and chalk came off brick with the rub of a licked palm. But that wasn't the point. She had very specifically ordered _him_ to remove the graffiti. Just to test if he would.

If he didn't, he was off the case.

"Okay," he said, fumbling in his pocket as if going for his handkerchief. Drawing it out, he glanced over Merivale's shoulder for a second.

"What?" she turned to look.

"Nothing," Dyer said. "At least… is that more graffiti on the wall in that doorway?"

As Merivale took a few steps forward to look, he whipped his phone out and blindly took a photograph. There wasn't time to frame the shot, and he didn't dare use the flash. By the time Merivale turned around again, he was dutifully wiping the bricks clean.

"Yeah," she said, "It's graffiti, but just the tag of some idiot named Jimbo."

"Oh," Dyer said innocently. "Sorry. Still, that's a relief."

* * *

"That was Dyer," Sherlock announced, killing the call and putting his phone in his pocket. "They've found the remains of Catherine's shirt in Goulston Street, and what they think is one of her kidneys."

John, who was still down on his heels examining the body, looked up swiftly. "Seriously?"

"I doubt they're mistaken. The human kidney looks distinct. What's the matter?"

"What do you mean, what's the matter?" John asked, nearly laughing. "Last time he pulled out Annie Chapman's intestines to get at her uterus. Okay. Now you're telling me he's done the same to get to her kidneys?"

"Not likely?"

"Nearly impossible," John said. "It'd take him a hell of a lot longer than ten minutes, and to be taking a kidney from the front… this guy knew what he was doing. I don't think I could have done that in under half a hour. Twenty, tops."

"You're saying—oh, what now, Dyer?" Sherlock growled as his phone rang again. He pulled it out and out of habit, looked down at the incoming caller display: Christabel.

 _He's dead. She's calling to tell me he's dead—_

"I, uh, I need to take this," he said. His voice sounded odd, like it was coming out of someone else. Before John could ask him why, he stepped out of the evidence tent and started walking swiftly up toward St James's passage, fumbling with his phone screen. "What's wrong?" he demanded.

Although he'd already deduced that Christabel was calling to tell him their father was dead, it still took him a few moments to recognise that she was crying. No; she was sobbing.

"Christa." He made himself use her nickname for the first time. "What's wrong?"

"Dad," she got out. "They… they don't think he'll last the night, Sherlock…"

 _Oh, my God. He's alive?_

Sherlock would have preferred to have been told he'd missed the opportunity, it was all too late; now all he had to decide was whether to attend the funeral and wonder if he'd been left anything in his father's will. That the old man was still alive, and Christabel was throwing this fact in his face—this was a problem.

"Please, Sherlock," she said, the words coming out in a pathetic blubber. "I can't do this on my own…"

"Your mother…?"

"Mom's being _stupid,_ Sherlock, she won't stop crying!"

Obviously where Christabel got the tendency from, since nobody could ever have accused anyone in the Holmes or Devereaux families of being overemotional. Sherlock cleared his throat and thought out what to say next. What would John say at a time like this?

"How can I help you?" he found himself asking.

"Please come."

"Come?"

"Here. Washington. _Please_ … you might get here on time…"

 _And if I don't, you'll want help planning a funeral._

Something hot and vindictive rose up in Sherlock, and he spent nearly half a minute fighting it down again. The bastard had walked out on his four-year-old son and never looked back. Let him rot, and it was too bad there was no hell for him to suffer in.

But he had the uncomfortable, growing conviction that there was some sort of hell on earth, and Christabel, his little sister Christabel, was in it.

* * *

It was nearly four a.m. by the time John finally let himself into 221a. Someone—either Molly or Harry—had left the light on the oven range hood, but it was the only thing illuminating the flat. Everything was silent and still, so much so that he could hear the hum of traffic outside and a dog barking several houses down the street.

Nothing edible on the stove or the counter; not that he deserved it, he thought, self-loathing creeping in. He opened the fridge out of habit anyway, though there was nothing particularly appetising in there, and the more he thought about it, the less hungry he felt. Leaving his wallet and keys on the kitchen counter, he went into the nursery to check on Charlie, finding her fast asleep in her crib.

"Who knew," he murmured, brushing her blonde curls off her forehead with one finger, "you were going to wind up the least of my problems one day?"

But Charlie wasn't good company just then, and he didn't exactly want her to be: she was rarely asleep at this time of night, and this was a refreshing change. Finally, as if resigning himself to an unpleasant duty, he went to his own bedroom.

Molly was sprawled out in the double bed, hair spilling every which way on her pillow, fast asleep.

He watched her for half a minute or so, trying to decide what to do. Finally he went into the living room and checked: the blanket and pillow he'd abandoned on the floor earlier in the night were both still there.

He sat down on the sofa and started to arrange as comfortable a camp-bed as he could be bothered with; exhaustion had started to creep into his bones, and he could easily sleep on a wooden plank just then. He'd just lay down in a semi-comfortable position when his phone, which he'd placed on the carpet near his pillow, flashed and offered a meek little _ping._ Incoming text alert.

 _Speedy's, 8am. You'll want to keep this discreet -M_

 _Today 3:49am_

John dropped the phone onto the carpet. "Go _fuck_ yourself, Mycroft," he muttered into the darkness.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks again for reading! Part of Catherine Eddowes's apron, kidney and the chalk "Juwes" graffiti were found in Goulston Street after her murder. I've played fast and loose with East End geography, since Goulston Street is actually a fair distance from Mitre Square._

 _A quick word about After the Fall, which some have been asking about, here or in its reviews. I'm revamping it by adding some scenes and changing others so they're not as clumsy (or don't contradict other stuff). It's not finished, but the last update will let you know when it is, and I do hope you read and enjoy it! I hope to then go on to similarly revamp the others, as I've learned a lot about writing in the last five years._

 _Letters From Hell is not on hiatus! That said, it's a LOT of work for me to write a 3k-word chapter; between this, my Honours thesis, my Honours novel, my day job and editing my other fanfiction, I don't think it's going to be possible for me to update this multiple times every week without working myself into a nervous breakdown._

 _Still, feedback and generally "knowing people are there" REALLY encourages me, makes me excited about my own story. There are times when I'm really, really not excited about it :p_

 _I'm unable to respond to anonymous reviews because the site doesn't allow it, but if you need to get in contact with me, you can do so at j_shutter_bugATyahooDOTcomDOTau_

 _Love, Edhla xx_


	20. Something You Need

Someone near John's left ear was screaming.

He opened his eyes, reaching out for it blindly, and closed his fingers around his phone. It was only after he'd pulled himself upright that he realised he was lying on the living-room floor, and the only thing screaming was his seven-thirty alarm.

He turned it off, resting his forehead on his knees and taking a few breaths. For a moment he contemplated going back to sleep, and it wasn't the prospect of his meeting with Mycroft over at the cafe that stopped him; it was the cold comfort of the hard floor and his suddenly wondering where Charlie and Molly were. He got up, folded the blanket and put it on the sofa seat, then went out to the kitchen to find Molly in her dressing gown and standing at the kettle, Charlie on her hip.

"Oh, Molly…" John went to her, lifting Charlie out of her arms. "You know you're not supposed to lift her yet," he admonished her gently.

"Well, I had to get her out of the cradle and change her, so…"

"You should have woken me; that's what I'm here for," he said.

"No it _isn't,_ John."

John decided not to reply, watching instead as she reached up and got another cup out for him. She knew she wasn't supposed to be doing that either, but on the balance of things, he considered reaching up into a cupboard for a cup far less likely to cause her another haemorrhage than carrying a chubby, wriggling toddler around.

"Did you get home okay?" he finally asked her, as if the end result wasn't obvious.

"Mmm. About an hour after…" Molly took a breath and lifted the boiled kettle to pour the cups without saying it: _about an hour after you left me at the hospital._ "What happened at the crime scene?"

"There were two murders," he said, with a little glance at Charlie. Had she been any older he would have put her in her playpen in the living room, since he wasn't sure how much of adult conversation she could pick up at this point. But she seemed oblivious, and anyhow, he and Molly had already decided that they would never make a big deal about what they did for a living in front of their children. The business of life and death was normal in the Watson household. "Two different murders, I mean. Happened about a mile apart, within the hour. The second one was… uh. Messy."

"More organs missing?"

"Both her kidneys. This guy knows what he's doing."

"You mean, like a doctor?" she ventured, and he knew she was thinking about the upcoming case against Ross Harding again. She'd almost inevitably be called upon to give evidence, and was looking forward to it about as much as she'd look forward to a funeral.

"Maybe," he said.

"Perhaps a butcher?"

"I don't know enough about animal anatomy to be able to say. Both autopsies are happening later this morning. I'll try to get the reports for you."

"Thanks. Do you want some breakfast?" Molly went over to the pantry to retrieve a loaf of bread.

"Mycroft wants to meet me at Speedy's, so we'll get something there," he said, letting Charlie down onto the floor. "I should get a move on and have a shower."

"Your coffee—"

"It's fine, make it anyway. I'll only be five minutes."

"Mmm." She opened the fridge.

"What time's the nurse coming around for you?" he asked her.

"Ten o'clock, she said."

"Great. We'll go out after that, if you want. See the twins, get some lunch."

"Okay. And John," she said, waiting until he was looking at her properly. "You're my husband, and you sleep in the same bed as me. Is that okay?"

* * *

Lestrade had signed in to work at eight o'clock, even though it wasn't a full eight hours after Merivale had sent him off from the murder scene of Liz Stride. He did, however, have what he referred to as a minder: Melissa had insisted on coming in with him, and wasn't shy in admitting that this was so she could keep an eye on him. After crashing for an uninterrupted five hours, he'd woken up with two black, bloodshot eyes, and every muscle in his body was screaming in agony.

"So what exactly does Merivale want you to do?" Melissa asked him while they were in the lift up.

"Witness reports and phone tips." Lestrade tried not to sound as disgusted as he felt. Both of these roles could be filled by uniformed officers, and quite often were. During an investigation, the police were often inundated with a small avalanche of useless information in the forms of witnesses reporting things that had never happened, and half of London calling the anonymous tipline to report incidents like a neighbour they didn't like standing in their own yard, looking dodgy. Looking after information from the public was slow, soul-destroying busywork well below the dignity of a senior detective, but it would keep Lestrade in the office for a few days. He opened his office door and nearly jumped out of his skin. Sherlock was sitting at his desk, feet up, texting madly on his phone.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Finalising," was Sherlock's cryptic answer. Lestrade was about to ask him exactly what he meant by it when he noticed the look on his face. Whatever had happened after he'd left Liz Stride's crime scene the following night, it wasn't good. And Lestrade was only halfway convinced it had anything to do with the murder of Catherine Eddowes.

"Mel," he said without looking at her.

"Sure." She reached for the door. "Coffee on its way."

Lestrade waited for the door to shut behind Mel and the sound of her footsteps to die away. "What's happened?"

"Christabel called." Sherlock put his phone down, still looking at it contemplatively. "Our father's in intensive care and hasn't long to live, it seems. Mycroft and I are flying out to Washington this afternoon."

Lestrade covered his face with his hands for a second and took a deep breath. "He's going to kill again, Sherlock. This 'Ripper' or whatever we're calling him. He'll do another one."

"Yes, he will. This will give his next victim a stay of execution while we regroup."

"What?"

"If the killer's trying to impress me, and he knows I'm not in the country to view his handiwork, he won't—"

The office door was flung open, without so much as a preliminary tap, and Jake Dyer stormed in. He was still wearing the same outfit as the night before, though he'd tried to disguise this by putting a different jacket on, and his hands were full of papers. "Sorry," he said, though he didn't sound his usual timid self around Lestrade. "I heard you were in, sir, and thought this couldn't wait. Sherlock's already heard this, but too bad, Sherlock, the more I think about it, the more pissed off I am."

"What the hell happened?"

Dyer explained Merivale's behaviour about the graffiti the night before, not without a few unnecessary expletives. "What was she even doing?" he asked rhetorically, pacing up and down the floor. "For God's sake, she wouldn't even let me _photograph_ it—"

"June did a long stint as a public order officer," Lestrade explained. "And she took a bottle to the back of the head during the riot in 2011."

"So?"

"So show a bit of respect, Constable," he said smilelessly. "I'm not going to say I don't blame her, but she's got her reasons for being paranoid, especially if she didn't think the graffiti had anything to do with the crime. What's your take on that, Sherlock?"

"The handwriting doesn't match that on the letters," Sherlock said.

"Sure?"

Sherlock raised one eyebrow.

"Fine, okay, you're sure. So how did someone end up writing it on the wall above Eddowes's kidney?"

"Think this one through, Lestrade."

With a sigh, Lestrade did, though it wasn't doing his headache any favours. "Because the writing was there first," he said.

"Merivale did say that the East End is full of graffiti about the murders already," Dyer said, determined to be fair. "So, what, the killer left the kidney there under the writing, wrapped in part of her shirt, because he thought it'd… look poetic?"

"Once _again_ you're asking the wrong question," Sherlock said.

"What's the right one?" Lestrade asked him.

"Not 'why did the killer leave her kidney here', but 'why did the killer remove her kidney in the first place?'. John admitted the killer was highly skilled, Lestrade; that he himself couldn't have removed one kidney in less than twenty minutes."

"Ah, yeah," Dyer suddenly said. "About that…"

Lestrade, looking up, saw that he was running one finger nervously over his unshaven jaw. "What?" he demanded.

"It's actually what I came to tell you," Dyer said. "I've been manning anonymous tips since seven, sir, and one came in just as I clocked in. Looks like our next suspect is John Watson."

Sherlock pulled his feet off the desk. "What?"

"Calm down," Lestrade said, putting a hand on Sherlock's shoulder for a second. "I'm not about to jump off the deep end with this, but I do need to hear it. Where are they getting that idea from, Dyer?"

"They pointed out he's both a soldier and a doctor, handy with a knife, if you want to call it that." Dyer, embarrassed, was avoiding Sherlock's gaze. "And apparently, if you make an anagram of one of John's old blog entries, it's basically a description of a sexual assault and murder."

"Bollocks," Lestrade said.

"Checks out, sir. Minus a couple of letters, plus a couple of letters. The entry is a few years old now, but—"

"Oh, for God's sake," Sherlock said. 'Stab red red women! CR is downing whores - AA.'"

"What's that?" Lestrade asked him.

"It's a perfect anagram of the first sentence of AA Milne's _Winnie-the-Pooh._ I assume it hasn't prompted either of you to start looking for a time-travelling, homicidal Christopher Robin."

"Sherlock—"

"John _isn't clever enough to create anagrams with his blog posts."_

"Sherlock—"

"Please don't tell me you're taking this _in any way_ seriously. It's utterly ludicrous."

Lestrade let him stew on this in silence for a little while. "Sherlock," he said. "I don't suspect John. But we do need to eliminate him from the investigation, because as our helpful tipper has pointed out, he meets several of the criteria for the killer. If nothing else, once we catch the _actual_ killer, we don't want to leave any gaps in our case for reasonable doubt." He pulled out his mobile phone. "Who've you talked to about this, Dyer?"

"Thought you should know first, sir."

"Good man. Don't say anything to anyone else yet." Lestrade was busy thumbing out a text. "I'll get John in to give a handwriting sample and fingerprints this morning. To _eliminate him,_ Sherlock. He's probably got an alibi for most of the crimes. But Molly's been in hospital, so that alibi's you, right? And the fact that we're almost guaranteed to find John's DNA or fingerprints somewhere at each crime scene, simply 'cause he was there after, doesn't help."

"Martha Tabram," Sherlock said. "John was never at that crime scene, because he couldn't find a babysitter. He _did_ attend her post-mortem, but he would have been in the viewing room, nowhere near her."

"Point in his favour," Lestrade agreed, putting his phone back in his pocket. "Any other leads, Dyer? Ones that are at least half sane?'

"Oh, you're going to just love this one, Sir," Dyer said. "I've had half a dozen people call in this morning to tell me the perpetrator was Prince Harry."

Lestrade blinked. "Prince Harry? As in, the Queen's ginger grandson?"

"The same."

"I really can't imagine him wandering the East End with a carving knife."

"Neither can I. Here's the theory: a couple of years back he was slumming it in the East End and met a prost- er, a sex worker named Annie Crook. He married her, and they've got a daughter."

Lestrade raised his eyebrows.

"And not only is she a commoner and a sex worker, she's also Catholic. The wedding was secret, but not secret enough, 'cause the Ripper victims are the women who knew about it and were blackmailing palace officials to never tell…"

"Prince Harry's probably the most recognisable man in Britain," Lestrade said. "Even the drunkest or highest of those women on the streets would recognise him the second they saw him. And anyway, he could have any woman he wanted, basically, so why would he be on the pull for street girls in a slum?"

"Maybe he's got a fetish."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure if he did, we'd know that already, too. Gossip columns love that kind of stuff."

"Why are we wasting time on this?" Sherlock got out of his seat. "This is rubbish. It's one thing for a prince to father a child, and another for him to marry the mother. Assuming, though, that this actually happened and our five victims were conspirators. One thing that connected all of them? They were all drinkers. Drinkers talk. Five alcoholic, impoverished women, and each of them has a story that would, if sold to any major newspaper, set them up for life. You seriously think they're going to forego that sort of opportunity in preference for turning tricks in the street for a tenner?"

"Yeah," Dyer said into his chest. Since bringing up John as a suspect, he hadn't made eye contact with Sherlock. "Anyway, on the off chance there was a kernel of truth in that mess, I ran checks. There's two Annie Crooks living anywhere in the East End. One's eight and the other is sixty-two. Annie Crook, Prince Harry's wife, doesn't exist."

* * *

John went over to Speedy's, finding Mycroft occupying a table near the back of the cafe. Unusually, there was nothing on the table in front of him, neither phone nor paperwork nor anything else; as John reached the table he practically collided with a waitress, who gave him a cheery apology and put two coffees down in front of them before bustling off. Mycroft, who so far hadn't even really looked at John, picked his up and took a sip.

"I'm here, if you hadn't noticed," John said.

"Yes." Mycroft sounded vague. He shut his eyes, as though deep in thought, then opened them again with a snap; it was an expression John recognised as one of Sherlock's tics, too. "Ah, yes," he said, as if changing the subject. "Sherlock got a phone call last night from Christabel Mohler."

"Oh, God," John said. "Did he die?"

"No." Mycroft sounded sour about it. "She rang begging Sherlock to come and see her in Washington. Our plane leaves Heathrow early this afternoon."

John spat a mouthful of coffee out, coughed and grabbed for a napkin to clean up the resulting mess. "You're leaving? In the middle of a case?"

"I assure you, it wasn't my idea."

"It was your idea two days ago. Did Sherlock tell you that Greg Lestrade got hit by a car yesterday and now he's stuck on desk duties?"

"I heard about that via other means. He's at headquarters with Lestrade now."

"So we're already missing Greg from the investigation, and now you're telling me Sherlock's leaving London. What the hell are we going to do without him?"

Mycroft half-smiled. "Admirable," he said.

"What is?"

"You didn't demand that either of us stay."

From somewhere in the direction of his pocket, John heard the muffled _ping_ of his text alert. He ignored it. "Waiting to hear your ideas, if you have any, on how we're going to catch this killer without Sherlock," he said.

"Your big chance to be lead detective, John, provided you don't provoke Merivale into having you thrown off the case as well. If our father is as ill as Christabel says, I don't think we'll be gone for long." Mycroft stirred his coffee. "I assume this won't interrupt your… other plans…?"

John raised one eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly as I asked. I'm aware of your family commitments." Mycroft was still stirring. "Which leads me to why I called you here. The Whitechapel Murderer—Jack the Ripper, if you like—has shown that he knows where you live, and he's made at least one attempt to actually break in. The security system at Baker Street is adequate, but it relies on my vigilance to be effective. You and your family will move into the apartment in Chelsea Harbour without further delay."

John shook his head. "No," he said. "Baker Street is—"

"Your home, yes. You're as foolishly sentimental about the place as my brother is, and I'm not interested in debating the issue. I've arranged to have a car to pick you up at eleven, after Molly's appointment with her nurse."

"How did you—"

"Your personal effects can be brought out later in the morning."

"That'll need to include most of Charlie's nursery."

"That can be arranged."

"We've got three cats between us, Mycroft," John protested. "And three goldfish."

Mycroft sighed heavily. "I've resigned myself to the idea of…" he pursed his mouth in disgust… " _cat litter_ in my apartment. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice."

John was thinking this through. It was true that he would have preferred to stay at Baker Street, especially while Sherlock was away; keeping the home fires burning, as it were. On the other hand, he had no doubt that if any place was secure, it was Mycroft's London address; and then, of course, the lure of mod cons…

"Oh, this is good," he said. "Yeah, just great. I'm really going to enjoy explaining this one to Molly."

"I'm sure she'll understand when you explain your safety is at risk," Mycroft said. "But that's not why I asked your discretion. I suppose you got my most recent text?"

"Yeah." Though he'd almost missed it; it had come in while he'd been in the shower.

"Did you bring it?"

John cleared his throat. Trying to keep his eye on the patrons behind him, who might have had a view under the table, he pulled the Browning out from where it was tucked into his belt and passed it under the table, tapping Mycroft with the grip until he took it and put it in his briefcase. "It ever occur to you that I might actually need that?"

"Of course." Mycroft sounded unperturbed. "Why else do you suppose I'm taking it from you?"

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks again for reading. One of the Ripper suspects was Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria's playboy grandson, for the reasons given in this chapter. It is, as Lestrade points out, the most ridiculous conspiracy theory, full of plot holes, and no serious 'Ripperologists' take it seriously today._

 _Another of the more unusual Ripper suspects was Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Alice's Adventures Underground). One sequence, where Alice is holding a screaming baby that literally turns into a pig, can be turned into an anagram (plus some letters, minus some letters, so not really) describing stabbing a woman. And yes, the 'Stab red red women' quote really is an anagram of the first sentence of Winnie-the-Pooh._


	21. Murder is Easy

After Sherlock had left the office, it felt as though he'd taken all hope of catching Jack the Ripper with him.

"We'll get him, darling," Melissa reassured her husband. In between fetching and carrying so that he hadn't needed to get out of his chair all morning, she'd been sitting at the other end of his desk, quietly processing a pile of notes.

"Yeah," he conceded. "But how many other people are going to die in the meantime?"

"Maybe Sherlock's right," she said. "Maybe if the killer knows he's left London, he'll hold off for the time being."

"Do you believe that?"

"No," she said reluctantly. "Psychosexual predators usually only stop if they're incarcerated or dead."

"That might've been something worth mentioning to Sherlock before he left."

"His Dad's dying, Greg. If you tried to force him to stay in London, you'd be dealing with him off his face and possibly mid-breakdown. What would be the point of that?"

He offered a vague grunt, as if conceding the point.

"In the meantime," she said, sounding more optimistic, "I've been doing a bit of tweaking on this profile. Want to hear it?"

"Of course."

She cleared her throat, like a schoolgirl preparing to give a speech. "Okay," she said. "Our guy is a white male, aged 28 to 36, but for God's sake, don't exclude your prime candidate if he's 22 or 40. He lives or works in the Whitechapel or Spitalfields area, and to look at, he'll seem just like anyone else."

"Great."

"He had an absent father, or perhaps a passive one, you know, a henpecked one. A mother with a strong character, probably one who drank, and possibly promiscuous in a way he noticed as a child. He's probably got a profession where he can legally live out some of his sick little fantasies."

"Like how we were saying," Lestrade said. "A butcher?"

"Something along those lines. And here's the thing, darling - he's got very poor self image. I think you're looking for someone with a physical defect that might be insignificant to everyone else, but it makes him feel cripplingly self-conscious and humiliated. Something like a hare lip or a limp, or even a man who's shorter than average or has a speech impediment. Something like that."

"That's pretty vague," he protested.

"The whole thing's vague, sorry. Anyway, he's not married and likely hasn't been in the past. He's withdrawn, shy even; neat and compliant with authority. He's also angry, Greg. So angry and so defensive that that _will_ be something you'd notice after talking to him for five minutes, especially if you touch on his sore spot."

"Women."

"Women. He probably attacked each victim while he was a bit drunk—bit of Dutch courage, but not so much that he couldn't make a quick escape. He's mostly fueled by rage." She put her papers down. "That's it," she said, a little lamely. "That's what I've got so far."

"Thank you," Lestrade said sincerely, with an uncomfortable conviction that he could have said it to more people that week. "So based on that, it seems like we were actually on the right track last night, looking for him in pubs and clubs."

Melissa nodded. "Of course, he could just buy booze from an off-license and drink it at home, but the time of the murders sugggests him being kicked out at closing time…"

She trailed off as there was a knock on the office door, and Susannah Cowley opened it when Lestrade invited her to. For someone who was probably putting in her twentieth hour on duty, she looked remarkably perky, her strawberry-blonde pixie cut fluffed up at the back and sticking out in odd little cowlicks.

"Sir," she said. "Update on this morning's witness interviews."

"You really should be reporting to Merivale, Cowley; not me," Lestrade said. Though June Merivale was apparently still out at the crime scene with the forensic technicians.

"… Can I report to both of you?"

"I'll say one thing in your favour; you really know who to suck up to." Lestrade gestured for her to take a seat. She did so, and he could see she was doing her best not to stare at him.

"Yeah, I know," he said, resisting the urge to rub at his eyes. "I look worse than I feel."

"Well, thank God for that," she said. "Anyway, sir, I interviewed Hutchinson, like you said; apparently he had a passing acquaintance with Elizabeth Stride. She was in and out of the mission all the time, seems."

"Okay," he said, leaning back in his chair. "From the top - even if it doesn't sound important to you."

"He remembered Stride because of her Swedish accent, and because she'd told him her husband and children were killed in the 7/7 attacks."

"We know they weren't," Melissa put in.

"Oh, and so did everyone at the Mission, apparently. They thought she was telling fibs for money. Hutchinson said it was weird, though, that even after he made it clear she was getting help no matter what happened to her husband and children, she wouldn't budge from the lie. Kept telling it."

"She never had kids, anyway," Lestrade said, picking up Stride's file and looking it over for possibly the fiftieth time that morning. "Not any living. And John Stride died four years ago, natural causes, which pretty well puts him out of our suspect list."

Cowley bit on the end of her pencil, trying to keep a serious face.

"What else?" he went on.

"Stride was a battered woman, apparently. Michael Kidney's a nasty piece of work."

Lestrade knew that too. "We're on that," he said. "Once we find him. Sherlock doesn't think there's anything in it, but if nothing else, he might be able to tell us if Liz had started hanging around anyone new. Or if anyone was hanging around her."

"Does Sherlock Holmes have a suspect he favours?" Cowley wanted to know.

"If he did, don't you think I'd have him in?" Lestrade thought uncomfortably about John, who was due to come in to be interviewed in just under an hour's time. With any luck, he'd be able to make it a discreet interview. "Anyway," he said. "I don't think Sherlock's all that bothered by suspects right now."

* * *

Since the Holmes brothers' departure to Washington was intended to be as public as possible, Mycroft saw no reason why he couldn't hijack the machinery of state for the occasion, in the form of a private plane. Sherlock said very little as he boarded and put his hand luggage away, though he was restless; he sat down and put his seatbelt on after Mycroft's prompting, but was flicking his hands against the armrests and tapping the toes of both feet inside his shoes.

"Stop it," Mycroft scolded, as if Sherlock was a misbehaving toddler.

"Mmm? Stop what?"

Mycroft rolled his eyes. When Sherlock started tapping the armrests again, he reached across the aisle and slapped his hand. " _Stop it_ ," he said again. "Turning into a nervous wreck won't help anyone."

"Who's nervous?" Sherlock protested. "I'm not nervous."

"No," Mycroft said smugly. "Of course you're not."

"You spoke to the press?"

"Several very humiliating 'Famous Detective Abandons Ripper Case' articles are being prepared for publication as we speak."

Sherlock winced. "Was it quite necessary to depict me as incompetent?"

"Yes. Otherwise the killer will suspect a trick. I said you had a family emergency, so I warn you, be prepared for the media to make the connection between Sherlock Holmes and the Antony Linwood Holmes who worked for MI6."

"Or, for that matter, the Mycroft Linwood Holmes who _works_ for MI6," Sherlock retorted. "We'll probably touch down in America to find your obituary's been published in the London Times."

Mycroft decided not to respond to this; in any case, they were both distracted by the flight crew's preparations for takeoff. They were long in the air and flying over ocean before Mycroft gave his attention again to Sherlock, who was leaned back in his chair with his eyes shut.

"I'm not asleep," he said, without bothering to open his eyes. "I'm thinking."

"What are you thinking about?"

"I'll give you three guesses. The first two don't count."

"Oh, Sherlock," Mycroft groaned. "Your misspent youth seems to be catching up with you."

Sherlock opened his eyes. "What?" he demanded.

"We spoke about this days ago, and agreed that whoever is doing these killings, he's sending you things to you, and to Lestrade, in tribute."

"And to taunt me."

"Yes, and to taunt you. The Chapman woman's missing uterus is of particular concern. But you're wasting your time trying to find the killer by analysing your past cases."

Sherlock frowned. "Am I? Why?"

"He's trying to get your attention now, because he failed to get it when you crossed paths before. You won't remember him. Whatever he did last time, you failed to recognise it for the crime it was. Murder is easy, so long as nobody thinks it is murder."

Sherlock knew better than to smile, but something had just lit up in his pale eyes. "Oh," he murmured. "Oh, that _is_ good. A murder so clever even I didn't realise it _was_ a murder…"

"Don't commit to that," Mycroft said. "I'm sure that Melissa will agree that his career trajectory suggests his origins are in common or sexual assault."

At this Sherlock made a face. Murders had always fascinated him and serial killers even more so, but he had never found rapes or sexual assaults satisfying cases. There was something grubby about them that got under his nails and down to the roots of his hair.

As the seatbelt light was now off, he got up and wandered to the back of the plane, where he could see something out the window that wasn't the wing. But the alternative was similarly dull: an endless horizon of blue ocean. Finally he took a breath and returned to his seat. Across the aisle, Mycroft was now absorbed in a Sudoku puzzle.

"Did he ever like me, Mycroft?"

There was no point in obfuscating, so Mycroft put down his puzzle and gave this due consideration. "Yes," he finally said. "I think he did. We went to Paris once, all four of us. You were only about two. I remember you wanted to chase the pigeons across the Place de la Concorde. For some reason our parents let you, probably in some sort of forlorn hope that you'd tire yourself out."

Sherlock smiled briefly. He was thinking about Charlie Watson.

"You tripped," Mycroft went on, "and went straight down on your face. There was a shocking amount of blood, and you screamed like you were being murdered, but you'd only knocked a baby tooth out. Dad took you to the fountain and washed your face. I remember him dipping you in until you were soaking wet and beside yourself laughing." He was lost in thought for a few seconds. "It's my only clear memory of hearing _him_ laugh."

"Why do you have my memory?" Sherlock's voice was thick with bitterness. "You have no right to it and no particular use for it."

"Consign it your imagination, brother." Mycroft picked up his Sudoku puzzle again. "I'm sure you'll make more of it there than your memory every could."

* * *

At half-past one, Jake Dyer, who'd been out collecting witness statements with Donovan, returned to the office bringing as many burgers and chips as he could carry; a more-than-welcome excuse for everyone to stop what they were doing and refuel. Melissa had kept discreetly out of the way after submitting her partial profile, but joined them in Lestrade's office for a meal and debriefing.

"There hasn't been anyone staying conspicuously close to the investigation?" she asked.

"None that I've noticed," Lestrade said. _Except John Watson._

But that was just stupid. Too stupid to even point out to Melissa, who was consulting some of her handwritten notes again.

"Nothing stands out on the witness statements," she said. "Or actually, quite a lot does, but we're running into dead ends all over the place. The mystery man Constable Barrett saw waiting outside George Yard buildings the night Martha Tabram died sounds a good candidate to me. All the witness statements are vague, but they could all be describing him. Where the hell is he?"

"We've run identity checks on every soldier meeting that description stationed anywhere in the Greater London area," Lestrade said. "Barrett hasn't identified any of them as the man he saw."

"So he's not a soldier," Dyer said. "He told Barrett he was one to mess with him. Mess with us."

"Wasn't that a bit… long-sighted of him?" Cowley ventured.

"It might have given him the idea," Melissa said. "Anyway, Charles Cross and Robert Paul looked like good candidates for Mary Ann Nichols' murder, Greg."

"Yeah, they did," he said. "Good thing Donovan's not in, 'cause this would break her vindictive little heart: they've both got unbreakable alibis for Chapman's murder. At work. Under a CCTV camera…" He glanced up; through the glass office partition he could see Donovan exit the lifts at the end of the corridor, with John Watson behind her.

"Um." He stood up, collecting his things together. "Don't mind me; deduce away. I'll be back, Mel."

* * *

Protocol demanded that John be taken into an interview room with proper surveillance, but Lestrade had made sure the other officers kept Interview Room One free that morning. It looked like a therapist's office, but the others looked like gaol cells. Still juggling his food in one hand and his case portfolio in the other, he followed John into the room, flicking the fluorescent lights on with his elbow. They coughed and sprang to life as he reached the desk to put everything down. The room was freezing; he went to tweak the blinds to at least let in some natural light.

"You look like hell," John remarked, sitting down.

Lestrade had a mouthful of burger at the time, which stopped him before he could give an honest _so do you._ He grabbed for a napkin. "It's fine," he said, wiping his mouth. "Bruised, but that's about it. Thanks for coming in."

"I got the impression I didn't have a choice," John said, and this time there was a sting in his voice.

"Listen," Lestrade said. "I know the last thing you're in the mood for is being questioned in relation to a series of horrific crimes, but just bear with me and do your best, okay? The faster I can eliminate you from this investigation, the happier we'll all be."

"Sure." But the way John laced his fingers together was unmistakable. Angry. Furious, in fact. Lestrade thought about warning him to keep his temper, then decided that doing so was almost a sure-fire way of guaranteeing he'd lose it in the next two minutes.

"Okay," he said, fumbling over his paperwork. "Look, I'll be honest with you. Someone with a lot of time on their hands pointed out that if we're looking for a suspect who's had experience with a scalpel, you're a pretty obvious choice."

"I'm a GP," John said.

"You're a GP now. What qualifications do you actually hold? I missed having a good look at your resume when you handed it in to Dave Burrows."

John sighed heavily. "I did my undergraduate degree at King's College and graduated in 1996. From 1996 to 1998 I did general surgical training at Barts; then I trained as a trauma surgeon out of Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford from 1998 to 2000. I did officer training at Sandhurst in 2001, a PQO course between 2001 and 2002 and Defence Medical Services training in 2003 and 2004; then I went to the RDMC and did a course in conflict surgery between 2005 and 2006. I was deployed in 2006, where I started out as a General Duties Medical Officer and got promoted… twice, from memory. Ended up as assistant surgeon. Then I was shot and came home. August of 2009. I met Sherlock in January of 2010. I _was_ recently appointed as FME for the Metropolitan Police MIT, but I don't think that's going ahead now that I'm a murder suspect. Should I ask you to prove you're a real detective?"

This last question had been facetious, but Lestrade rose to the occasion. "Joined the force straight out of school in 1982 and broke up domestics and pub brawls for the first four years," he said. "Then I did some training and got promoted to a Level 2 PSU Officer for the Avon and Somerset Constabulary in 1986, trained in Public Order and Riot Control. Did that on top of general duties until I made Detective Constable in 1991; floated between teams for a couple of years as a general dogsbody and got into the Bristol MIT in 1993. I made Detective Sergeant in 1995 and Detective Inspector in 2002, and transferred to the Met in 2005 as second-in-command of the Central Unit MIT. I met Sherlock three days after I got here, and that's probably why I haven't had a promotion since. Isn't it great we know so much about each other now?"

John rolled his eyes.

"Oh, come on, John; you know I don't think you had anything to do with these murders, so calm down. I know this is a waste of time, but frankly, I'm enjoying the chance to sit down." Lestrade cleared his throat. "Where were you between 2am and 3am on the morning of Sunday the tenth of January?"

"At home," John said icily. "Baker Street. I was either asleep or up with Charlie; I don't remember which."

"But you never left the building?"

"No."

Judging from John's tone, Lestrade knew his next three or four questions weren't going to go over well, but they had to be asked regardless. "What about between two and four on the morning of Tuesday the twelfth of January?"

"At home. Sherlock woke me up with some mad experiment and I'd ony been awake about five minutes when you called him, which would have been, what, four o'clock?"

"About that," Lestrade agreed. "Four and six in the morning on Wednesday the thirteenth?"

"At home. In bed. We had CCTV at our front door by then; check the tapes. Even if I'd come out the basement door, the camera would have caught it."

"Yeah, probably. So, just for fun, what were you doing between eleven in the evening last night and one in the morning, the fourteenth?"

"You know what I was doing," John said, and by now he was biting down on his temper so hard that he was practically talking through his teeth. "I was at the Royal London Hospital with you, waiting on your CT scan results. I left about half-past midnight and went straight home. Got there about one, or a couple of minutes past. Then Molly and I went to Evelina London Children's Hospital to see the twins, and I was there when Sherlock rang me to tell me Catherine Eddowes had just been murdered."

"Four days," Lestrade said, throwing his pen down in disgust. "He's killed five people in four days."

"I know. And you're not going to find him by interrogating me."

Lestrade covered his face with his hands. "Four days, five victims, no good leads, no real suspects. And eleven news vans parked outside."

"That's Merivale's problem now," John said.

"Yeah, I suppose so." Lestrade picked up the pen again and resigned himself to the rest of the interview. "Anyway," he said wearily. "What hand do you write with?"

"I'm cross-dominant," John said. "I _write_ with my left hand. Shoot and punch with my right. It's also what I'd be using if I was going to stab someone thirty-eight times with a pen-knife."

"I doesn't seem like…" Lestrade trailed off as his mobile phone started to ring. As this could have been someone from upper command, he excused himself and checked the caller ID. _Matthew._

"Sorry," he muttered to John, swiping at his phone's touchscreen. "Matty's home on his own, I've got to take this… hello?"

"Dad," Matthew said. "Sorry, I know you're busy at work, but a weird package just arrived, addressed to you."

His heart gave a painful thump. "What do you mean by weird? Size? Shape? Weight?"

"It's… I don't know. It's just an ordinary brown-paper box," he reported. "But the feel of it's all wrong, and it smells like a handful of coins."

Lestrade glanced at John in alarm. "Matty," he said. "Are you holding it right now?"

"It's on the kitchen table."

"And you're the only one home?"

"Mm. Except for Smoky."

Unlike John Watson, Lestrade was practical in the extreme when it came to prioritising human lives over pets. "Never mind her," he said. "Call your mother and tell her to come and pick you up."

"I can't," Matthew protested. "She and Mark are in Harrogate for the week, remember?"

 _Of course,_ Lestrade thought. He'd forgotten. That was exactly why Matthew was spending that week with him and Melissa in the first place.

"All right," he said. "Listen. Don't touch the package; just leave it on the table. Get your wallet, your phone and your keys, and start walking up toward that cafe on the high street, the one next to the newsagents. Send me a selfie of you standing in front of it in fifteen minutes, okay? No arguments."

"What's happened?" John asked as Lestrade disconnected the call.

"Not sure yet." Lestrade was now absorbed in dialling someone else. "But Dyer and Merivale only found one of Catherine Eddowes's kidneys in Goulston Street. I hope the Ripper's sent me the other one, and not a bomb."

* * *

 _ **A/N** : Thanks again for reading. All feedback cherished. It's been a ghastly week._

 _Mel's Ripper profile is a truncated version of the FBI's profile on Jack the Ripper. I've left some things out of it for length and coherence, but not added anything._

 _John and Lestrade's backgrounds are basically just fanfiction, and fudged in places, but they're a reasonable assumption of the career trajectory each would have had to be at his current career position._


	22. From Hell

"Sorry." Lestrade gathered up his things, stooping to pick up a rogue piece of paper that had just fluttered to the floor. "I've got to go home and see what's going on with this package."

"I'll come with you," John offered.

Lestrade stopped what he was doing and looked him over, as if weighing this up. "You know you shouldn't," he said. "You're—"

"Yeah, I know; I'm your suspect."

"You're _not_ my suspect, but Merivale's going to go by what's on paper, so you're technically _her_ suspect."

"Greg, come on. It's _me."_

Another pause while Lestrade thought this over. "Fine," he said, throwing the remains of his lunch in the bin by the door. "Come on, then. But don't make it too obvious that we're heading off together."

John breathed a sigh of relief when they finally reached the basement carpark and Lestrade's modest Audi. Greg was prone to breaking the rules if he thought he could justify breaking them, but he would never have agreed to take him along if he thought there was the remotest chance that he was the Ripper, or that he was feeding information to anyone who was.

And what did _that_ make him think of…?

"Stupid of me," Lestrade muttered as he slammed the car door after himself and fumbled with his seatbelt. "Leaving a kid like Matthew at home when I know this bastard knows where I live."

"If he was going to hurt Matthew, he would have," John pointed out.

"Oh, I know. Teenage males couldn't be further from his victimology. Still, not one of my finest moments. I'll just be grateful if Matty's kept himself together and hasn't ruined the evidence."

"He's a crime writer," John pointed out. "And cares about accuracy, if the questions he asks Molly and me are anything to go by. If a civilian knows about contaminating evidence, it's him. You're hoping for DNA? Fingerprints or something?"

Lestrade, checking his shoulder to merge onto the main road outside, didn't react for a few seconds. "Fingerprints are probably a dead loss," he said. "Depending on who delivered that package, too many people have touched it by now. DNA, maybe, depending on what's in it. We haven't had a lot of luck with that so far."

"No DNA at all, from five murder scenes?"

"Nothing that jumped out at us, but that's the beauty of killing people outside," Lestrade said. "It was raining on the nights Martha Tabram and Polly Nichols were killed, too, which didn't help. The bit of Catherine Eddowes's shirt we found in Goulston Street's being tested, 'cause Anderson's hoping he wiped his fingers on it before leaving it there, but the results might take a few days, and if this guy keeps killing at the rate he has been, we don't have a few days. Check that for me, will you?" he asked, glancing to where his phone, which had just pinged out a text alert, was sitting in the front console. John swiped it up and checked it.

"Selfie, like you asked," he reported.

"Can you text Hayley and ask if she can go and get him, take him back to her and Jake's place?"

John dutifully opened the phone's address book. "You don't seriously believe this is a bomb, Greg," he said, starting to peck out a text with his thumb. "You'd have called bomb disposal."

"Not taking any chances," Lestrade said. "But seriously? Matthew said it smelled like a handful of coins, so I'm thinking it's either blood or semen."

John winced. That latter consideration was a level of sick even he hadn't contemplated before.

"Unlikely, that last one," Lestrade went on. "'Cause if it's semen, it'd have to be his own. DNA. He wouldn't be that stupid. And since we're missing Catherine Eddowes's left kidney and a portion of her abdominal wall…"

"Which still leaves the question of what he did with Annie Chapman's uterus," John muttered, pressing _send_ and putting the phone back in the console. He was thinking of Molly, at home with nobody for company but Charlie and Harry again. He'd had a vague idea over the last few days that once this was all over, regardless of the outcome, they should go away somewhere nice. But with the twins so tiny and fragile, not to mention Charlie in a clingy stage, it didn't seem possible any time soon. "Anyway," he said. "Why would he have gone from sending you roses to sending you internal organs?"

"I'd say either because I've pissed him off somehow or because he's just jumped off the deep end, but our best bet on that is Mel," Lestrade said. "Now that Sherlock's left us high and dry."

"He steps out of the country for five seconds, and all hell breaks loose," John agreed.

"In more ways than one. I heard you've relocated."

"That wasn't my idea," John replied, feeling affronted by this and not knowing why.

"Good one, though," Lestrade said, either not registering or not bothering about John's tone. "What's Mycroft's place like? I can't help imagining it as some sort of villain's lair."

John smiled. "Hardly," he said. "And I haven't had a good look yet, but I've got no complaints. The bed's bigger than our room at Baker Street. And there are heated floor tiles in the bathroom and kitchen."

"Yeah? So what do I have to do to be moved into a luxury apartment?"

"I think having human organs mailed to your house might qualify."

* * *

It felt like midnight when Mycroft and Sherlock touched down at Dulles, though it was still daylight and the official time was just past four-thirty in the afternoon. After what seemed like interminable security screenings at Immigration, they finally reached the airport lounge. Christabel was smothered in a black coat and jeans and had sunglasses on indoors, but she was nearly six feet tall and her height made it difficult to mistake her for anyone else. Mycroft hung back while Sherlock approached her, hesitant; she took off her sunglasses, revealing red, puffy eyes that in their natural state were rather similar to Mycroft's.

"Thank you," she croaked.

"… It's okay," was all Sherlock could think to say, though the look on Christabel's face told him that it wasn't. The last time he'd seen her, the previous November, she hadn't exactly looked cheerful; but this time she was a shuddering, soggy wreck.

 _Odd_ , he thought to himself, under the uncomfortable suspicion that perhaps Christabel actually loved her parents. And perhaps she loved them because they loved her.

"Are we…" He looked around for anyone who might have accompanied Christabel to pick them up. Even in his lagged, heavy-minded state, it had still occurred to him that people rarely go to airports on their own. Case in point: Mycroft was now hovering somewhere behind him. Trust Mycroft to throw him under the bus of an awkward social situation. "I mean, did you bring…?"

"Carsten and Mom are at the hospital," she said.

Sherlock's heart sank. Of course, he'd known all along that the idea of getting through this trip without encountering his stepmother was ludicrous, but some secret part of him had been hoping.

In Sherlock's mind, Martine Bernier-Holmes was thirty-five, as though she had been frozen in time the moment she'd met her husband. Seeing her sitting in the hospital corridor an hour later, he stopped short in astonishment: the woman was sixty if she was a day. Her hair was dyed ash-blonde, and dyed well; not a grey root in sight. Despite the circumstances she was very well turned-out, wearing a plum-coloured skirt that showed off calves that were still shapely, and a cream silk blouse with a gauzy golden-brown scarf at her throat. Her make-up was tasteful and applied with a skilled hand, right down to a brand-new coating of nail polish. She was very clearly preparing for her husband's funeral.

More, though. The reality of it was so stark that Sherlock couldn't process it for a few seconds. Martine was astonishingly like…

No. Martine was _not_ like his own mother. Philippa Devereaux had been a stunning woman, even well into middle-age, moulded with the almond-shaped, wide-set eyes and high cheekbones that had been her legacy to her youngest son. Martine Bernier had always been plain, so much was obvious. She was an inferior copy. Still, Sherlock had to silently approve of her efforts to look like the woman she replaced.

"Mom," Christabel said, subdued. "This is Sherlock and Mycroft."

Martine wiped her careworn face and stood up to shake Sherlock's hand; an odd, awkward formality. "Hello," she said, in a voice reedier than he had expected. "You're Antony's eldest boy…?"

Something in Sherlock's chest welled up until it hurt. "Younger," he said, looking over his shoulder for Mycroft. "This is my older brother, Mycroft."

After shaking hands with Mycroft, though, Martine actually took a step back. "Oh my God," she blurted. "It's like looking at Antony!"

It wasn't, and Sherlock knew it, though he only had a vague still from a video to know what his father looked like at fifty. Antony Linwood Holmes had fairly divided his genetic inheritance between his sons: both had inherited his height, and so had his daughter. Mycroft had inherited his beaky nose and close-set eyes; Sherlock had inherited his physique, his jawline, his sharply angular face.

He had a moment of wondering about his voice. Had that come from his father, too? He'd never thought as far as to ask.

"Thank you for coming," Martine was saying. Her accent was odd, almost colourless; a sort of cosmopolitan jumble of American, French and, oddly, English. Perhaps she had picked that up from her husband. There was a movement in Sherlock's peripheral vision, and a thick-set man with spiky fair hair moved over to Christabel, putting one hand on her shoulder. Her husband, then; Carsten Mohler.

"It's okay," Sherlock mumbled again, seeing that Mycroft wasn't going to do the honours. He'd never known Mycroft to be completely silent for so long, and the effect was unnerving. Perhaps both he and John had been wrong; perhaps Mycroft really was accompanying him on this mad mercy-dash purely for his benefit, not Mycroft's own. It was as though he was trying to pull himself out of the scene altogether. Or scrabbling to make sense of it all.

"How…" Sherlock, realising he was about to ask the ludicrous question _how is he,_ fell silent.

Martine wiped her eyes again. "I think he might be asleep," she said, and Sherlock wondered if that was a euphemism for unconscious. "You can go in and see him, though, if you like… bed seven…"

She pointed to the solid, double-swinging doors that went through to the intensive care ward. Mycroft, apparently deciding to take matters into his own hands, went forward as if to go in. He was stopped by a young nurse emerging from the doorway.

"Oh, sorry," she said holding one hand up to stop Mycroft. "Family visitors only."

Before either Mycroft or Sherlock could open their mouths, Martine intervened. "This is family," she said, taking a couple of brisk steps forward. Her heels clicked on the waxed floor. "These are my husband's sons from his first marriage."

"You can go in, then," the nurse said, sounding slightly miffed. "No more than two at a time, okay?"

Sherlock looked at Mycroft, who coughed into his hand. "Come on, then," he said, subdued, and Sherlock followed him through a short corridor, into the intensive care ward, and three cubicles down the room until they found the one with a numeral seven scrawled on a whiteboard hanging beside it. The curtain was drawn, but Mycroft drew it aside and went in, and Sherlock followed.

Sherlock had only two memories of his father: a confused jumble of disconnected, angry scenes from when he was four years old, and a newer, even more painful memory: seeing, from across the street, a white-haired old man on the doorstep of Christabel and Carsten's apartment in Berlin. He could reconcile neither of them with the shrivelled, barely-alive man in the trolley bed before him, so obscured with oxygen mask and IVs that he was barely visible. His skin was shrunken down over his cheekbones, and there were blue shadows under his eyes. Sherlock had a moment of wondering what colour those eyes were. The air was sharp with the smell of rubbing alcohol and urine. Mycroft, standing on the other side of the bed, was looking unusually thoughtful.

"What are you thinking?" Sherlock asked him.

"To be quite honest with you," Mycroft said, "I'm resisting the urge to pick up a pillow."

"Mycroft!"

From behind the curtain, someone hushed them.

"I said I'm _resisting,_ Sherlock, what more do you want?" Mycroft hissed. "You know I'm not given to family loyalty, especially when it's not shown to me. Or shown to you, for that matter."

"I didn't expect you to start weeping by his bedside, Mycroft. If this is how you felt, why did you even come?"

"Because you _asked me to,"_ Mycroft said witheringly. "Because in your current fragile state, I thought—"

Sherlock laughed. "This?" he demanded, pointing to the still figure on the bed. " _This_ is why you think I take drugs?"

"Shh!"

"I don't need to shh, _you_ shh!"

"Sherlock, there is a connection—"

"There is _no connection,_ Mycroft. You seriously believe I'm weak enough to fall apart because Daddy didn't love me enough?" Sherlock leaned over the bed toward him, completely ignoring the man in it. "Listen, Mycroft, and listen well. I told you when I was twenty why I do what I do, and the answer has never changed: _because the world moves too slowly for me._ Now here we both are, in entirely the wrong continent at the wrong time, and it's because you thought my doing this was going to—"

Both of them jumped as the curtain was drawn aside. A different nurse this time: one whose face indicated she wouldn't stand for nonsense. "Okay," she said. "Both of you need to leave now."

Mycroft, who hadn't taken an order since his mother had died, blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Out." She threw out an arm in the direction of the ward doorway. "Now. Before I call security."

* * *

The package on Lestrade's kitchen table was as innocuous as Matthew had described it: a brown paper box, barely bigger than a paperback novel, tied up with string, like a macabre reference to Paddington Bear. Only a faint smell, that of copper coins or steak left out of the fridge an hour too long, indicated that anything was amiss about it. Both Lestrade and John stood in the kitchen doorway looking at it in silence.

"We may as well admit it," John finally said. "If either of us seriously thought that was a bomb, we wouldn't be standing here."

"If I was _that_ confident, I wouldn't have sent my son a mile away," Lestrade said.

"Fine, but we can't stare at it all day. We can open it, or we can call the bomb squad and wait for them to do it. What do you suggest?"

Lestrade considered this. The adult, responsible thing to do would be to call the bomb squad, of course. The trouble was, not all of Lestrade was concerned with the adult and responsible thing to do. He needed to know what was in that package. He needed to know before anyone else got to it. Besides, the bomb squad would make this national news, and that might prove dangerous for the case, and any of the Ripper's potential victims, while Sherlock was out of the country. Stepping forward, he took a closer look without touching it.

"No stamp or postmark on the outside," he remarked. "He delivered this personally. Or had someone else deliver it. You open it, then."

"The last thing I need is my fingerprints all over the Ripper's handiwork, Greg."

"Hang on, I'll get you a pair of gloves." Lestrade made his way through the living room to the foot of the staircase.

"I'll need a pen knife, while you're at it," John called after him.

"Who owns a pen knife these—? Sherlock's got one, hasn't he."

"I think he's got more than one."

Lestrade, upstairs rummaging through drawers of his wardrobe after a pair of gloves, thought on this one. Sherlock had several pen knives. Martha Tabram was stabbed nearly forty times with—

 _Oh for God's sake, Greg, get a grip._ Lots of people owned pen knives, probably. Besides, the man they were looking for also owned a deerstalker, which he'd probably bought purposefully to wear in front of witnesses. It wouldn't be too much of a leap for him to have bought a pen-knife because he knew Sherlock owned one.

By the time he'd retrieved the gloves and returned to the kitchen, John had already retrieved a small paring knife from the cutlery drawer. He pulled the gloves on and carefully slit all eight sides of the paper until it fell off, revealing another box, one that had clearly once been white cardboard and was now horribly, and unmistakably, stained.

"Yep," John said, covering his nose with the back of one wrist and giving a cough. "I think we've found the missing kidney. By the smell, I think he might have thrown in Annie Chapman's uterus into the bargain."

Lestrade, who had been expecting this all along, was repulsed by the smell but not particularly interested in opening the box. Lying on top of it, snug in between the wrapping, was a folded piece of paper.

"Oh good," he said, "I'm glad he's keeping the line of communication open. What's it say?"

"Give me a second." John was unfolding the paper with almost surgical precision, using the edge of the knife and the tip of one finger. Finally it fell open to reveal:

 _From hell._

 _Mr Lestrade_

 _Sor_

 _I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and presarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer_

 _Signed_

 _Catch me when you can Mishter Lestrade_

* * *

 _ **A/N** _ \- _Thanks again, and always, for reading. I thrive on knowing people want to read the story I'm writing, so reviews, follows or faves are all very, very welcome._

 _What is now known as the 'From Hell' letter was received by George Lusk, the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, on October 16 1888. Enclosed was half a human kidney, and while DNA analysis was obviously impossible for over a hundred years after, there are good reasons to believe the kidney did belong to victim Catherine Eddowes. I've produced the letter verbatim, only substituting 'Lestrade' for 'Lusk'._


	23. Catch Me When You Can

Whether it was latent shock and concussion or something else, Lestrade had no notion of how much time passed between reading the Ripper's letter and the house suddenly being full of people: detectives, officers in uniform, and techs in scrubs, one of whom had an imposing-looking Nikon camera with an enormous flash perched on top of it. He'd ended up in the living room, somehow, and someone had made him a cup of coffee, though by the time he thought to start drinking it it had gone lukewarm. John was standing near the doorway to the kitchen, talking to June Merivale, who still had her handbag over one shoulder: just arrived, then. They parted as Melissa barged her way through.

"How'd you get here?" Lestrade asked her.

"Well, it wasn't easy, after you buggered off with the car," she said. "Dyer brought me. He's out the front somewhere." Turning to John, she said, "You really shouldn't have let him drive here."

"… Sorry," John offered. "I mean, uh. He didn't report any delayed concussion, and we were in a rush to get here because of Matthew. I thought it quicker and easier to… you know, watch him… than try to overpower him for the keys."

"Are you okay, Greg?" Merivale asked.

"Yeah. Fine." He made himself stand up and go over to her. "So this… uh. It wasn't sent through the post. Must've been dropped off through the letterbox, whether the killer did it or sent another kid to do it for him."

"Looks like." Merivale glanced at Melissa, then back into the kitchen where two suited technicians were still hovering over the macabre package on the table. All of them suddenly heard a new voice in the direction of the front door: Anderson. Making small-talk with Dyer, from the sounds of things.

"Did he know, do you think?" Lestrade asked.

"What do you mean?" Melissa asked.

"I mean, did he know Matthew was here on his own? I was at work—and the Ripper must have known that. Did he deliver that because he knew my son would be likely to get to it first?"

"Impossible to say," Melissa said. "But on the balance, I'd say no. The letter doesn't make any reference to Matthew or any indication that they expected he'd be reading it. This guy is hardly subtle. If he was going to menace Matthew, I think he'd make it more obvious."

Well, that was one thing. Though with the Ripper's current career trajectory, it wouldn't be a big step up for him to start threatening the investigators' children. Lestrade suddenly thought of Molly's tiny, premature twins. "Either way," he said, "I don't think it's safe for him to stay here for the time being."

"Not a good idea for him to stay with Hayley and Jake, either," Melissa said. "So far, they've fallen under the radar, but don't count on things staying that way. My suggestion is to send Matty to stay with Lorraine, but it's up to you."

Lestrade considered this. Lorraine lived with her daughters in St Ives. It was a good, safe distance from the case, and although Jessica and Brooke were a few years older than Matthew, he seemed to get along okay with them.

"I'll ask her," he finally said. "If—"

"Lestrade," Anderson called from the kitchen, "Could you come and have a look at this for a minute?"

Lestrade felt, rather than saw, Merivale's frustrated huff at his shoulder, and some secret part of him was pleased: this might now be Merivale's investigation on paper, but that was about it. He gestured to John, and both of them filed back into the kitchen, where Anderson, in full scrubs, was hovering over the open package on the table.

"The whole thing will need to go back to the lab, as soon as we can get it there," he said, "but while we're photographing it, I thought I'd give you my first thoughts."

"Sure," Lestrade said, folding his arms. "Go ahead."

"Right now, my opinion is that the kidney is human. It probably belongs to an adult female, going by its size. It's hard to tell under these lights, but it also seems inflamed to me. It might help us make a quicker identification than DNA tests, which are going to take a couple of days."

Lestrade looked at John. "Inflamed kidneys…?"

"Could be anything, from a garden-variety infection to cancer," John said. "Likelihood is chronic nephritis. It's common in alcoholics."

"Catherine Eddowes was a serious drinker," Lestrade said. "They all were, apparently…"

"If it doesn't belong to Catherine Eddowes, we've got a bigger problem than we thought," John said. "Because so far, she's the only one who's missing hers."

"Better than that," Merivale said, having invited herself into the kitchen to hear the details of her own case. "I was about to ring to tell you, Lestrade. Catherine Eddowes spent three hours in the Bishopsgate drunk tank on the night she died. Judging from the timing of her death, the killer might have been the first person she saw when she got out."

"No CCTV?" So far as Lestrade knew, every police station in London had CCTV fitted to the front entrance.

Merivale shrugged. "Nothing useful," she said. "Bishopsgate's sent over what they have. You can see Catherine leaving, and she looks sober enough to look after herself. She stops on the kerb for ninety-four seconds before moving on. But whether she's talking to someone or hailing a cab or what isn't clear, because whoever or whatever's stopped her, it's out of frame."

"No evidence she took a cab? Bishopsgate lockup is a fair distance from Mitre Square."

Merivale shook her head. "My guess is that she was talking to a friend or a potential client," she said. "We need to find who it was. I doubt it was the Ripper posing as a client, though. Like you say, very unlikely to have walked her all that way to Mitre Square when he could have just taken her in an alley much closer by."

Lestrade nodded, and Anderson, not knowing what to make of this, returned to the issue at hand.

"Anyhow," he said. "My area isn't in pathology, so further details on the condition of the kidney are going to have to wait. I'm more interested in this…" He pointed to one side of the box with a gloved finger.

Lestrade leaned closer, peering at it. "A fingerprint," he said. "Hallelujah. It's… it's not just Matthew's, though, right?"

Anderson shook his head. "Inside of the box, only visible when we opened it," he said.

"Oh." Lestrade flushed. "Yeah. That was pretty obvious."

"And we found something else that _wasn't_ obvious," Anderson went on, tactfully letting Lestrade keep his dignity. He held something up between his fingers, invisible at first; as he held it up to the overhead light, Lestrade caught a glimpse of it, pale as gossamer.

"Head hair, going by the length. It's not Catherine's?"

Anderson shook his head. "Too light and too straight," he said. "We'll need to examine it against the samples we have, but at a guess, I'd say that's Liz Stride's. And if we found her hair on Catherine's kidney, that's plain proof this was the work of one killer."

"I won't say we weren't already taking that for granted," Lestrade said, "but the confirmation will be nice for the court case."

Because of course, they were only days—hours, maybe—away from catching this guy. There would be a court case. Of course there would…

John glanced at his watch. "If there's nothing else I can do here right now," he said, "Um. I kind of promised Molly we'd spend this afternoon together…"

"Oh, God, of course," Lestrade said, suddenly remembering. "Go. Give Molly and the girls my love, will you?"

* * *

Martine was next to go into the ICU and spent nearly twenty minutes there, though what transpired between her and her husband was lost to the ages. Sherlock sat in contemplative silence, though he was dimly aware of Mycroft having a stilted but polite conversation with Carsten in German, and it was as irritating as teeth-itch. Mycroft had no interest in Carsten Mohler, except insofar as it was possible his children might inherit the bulk of the Holmes fortune. He did, however, have an interest in showing off that he was polylingual. The continued this conversation—mostly to do with engineering, from what Sherlock could make out—until Martine emerged again. After wiping her careworn eyes and squeezing Christabel's hand, she glanced up at the clock behind the nurse's station.

"Oh," she said. "How did it get so late?" She turned to Sherlock, having evidently decided he was more approachable than his brother. "You must be starving, and so tired."

Sherlock had last eaten before leaving London, and with London five hours ahead in time zones, it had been a long day already. Still, something defiant rose up in him. Martine, who had spent thirty years married to his father and who was about to be widowed, had no right to look at _him_ with such pity. "Well, I…"

"I just spoke with the nurse—they said that if he's going to… er, sink… he won't do it for a few hours. We'll get you back to the house."

Sherlock looked at Mycroft, who cleared his throat and rose to the occasion. "I'm afraid we've already got hotel reservations," he said. "At the—"

"Oh, cancel them, please. I'd feel terrible if you came all this way and stayed in a hotel," Martine protested. Sherlock narrowly avoided telling her he'd feel worse if they came all this way and didn't. "Come back to the house with us. There's plenty of room for you."

Mycroft paused, but only for a second. "Thank you," he said. "That's very… hospitable of you."

There were times when Mycroft displayed great fortitude and courage, Sherlock thought as he followed the little group out toward the lifts. And there were others when he was an utter, utter coward.

* * *

Sherlock had been unconsciously expecting the home their father had shared with Martine for twenty-nine years to be a sort of American copy of Linwood—dark and austere. It was dark when they pulled up in the wide gravel driveway half an hour later, but his impression of the house in front of him was that it was, above all other things, tacky.

Pale sandstone edifice with small, thin-paned windows, security cameras and sensors perched above them. Low sloping roof. The front hall and living room where they found themselves looked as if it hadn't changed much since the 1980s, decorated in an assortment of tones from taupe to apricot, with floral print sofas and organdy curtains. It smelled like construction glue, as if nobody had lived in it for a long time.

"There," Martine said, almost pathetically eager to please; it crossed Sherlock's mind that she might be headed for some sort of breakdown. "I'll make some supper…"

"And while Mom and Carsten are doing that, I'll show you your rooms," Christabel said, as if realising how anxious her brothers were to find safe haven. "Upstairs. Come on."

The guest room were Christabel took Sherlock was a continuation on downstairs' dubious decor, with the same sort of floral print bedspread and gauzy muslin curtains framing a plain beige pull-down blind. Ceramic lamps on the bedside tables. There was a little ensuite that served his bedroom and the one where Mycroft had been shown.

"I hope you're comfortable," Christabel said, hovering in the doorway.

"It's okay," Sherlock said, not sure if this was an appraisal of his room or an apology of sorts for being in it.

"Do you ever say anything other than 'it's okay'?" she suddenly asked.

"Yes," he snapped. "When I have someone worth talking to."

He saw a spark of real hurt in her eyes, and had a rare moment of regret for his choice of words. "I'm… sorry," he managed to get out, under the conviction that this was what John would have liked him to say. "I didn't mean that. I'm tired."

"So am I," Christabel said reproachfully, as if to continue with _so I don't need your rudeness as well._ "I'm going down to help Carsten and Mom with supper. We'll call you when it's ready."

"Thank you." Sherlock turned away from her, rummaging in his hand luggage for his mobile phone.

She left, and he listened to her footsteps along the landing before dialling in John's number. It took him a surprising amount of time to answer, and when he did, his voice was thick with sleep.

"Just gone one in the morning, Sherlock," he mumbled. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Sherlock reached over to the larger suitcase he'd brought and flipped it open, rummaging around for the cigarettes he'd bought at Customs. "I wasn't thinking of the time zone, but now you're on the line we may as well stay that way. I need an update on the case."

He listened as John filled him in on his interrogation and the discovery of the package and letter at Lestrade's place. When he'd finished, he said, "You're confident that the author of this letter isn't the same as that of the others? People can disguise their writing, and some are very good at it."

"You know I'm not an expert," John said. "But it looks to me like different handwriting from a different person. Someone who can barely read and write. You said this guy was unlikely to act while he knew you were out of the country."

"But he'd already removed the kidney by the time I decided to leave. It's possible he intended to send the kidney to Baker Street and didn't know what else to do with it when that proved a dead end."

"God, I hope so. If he's going to kill another one tonight, now's about the time. I'll send you the photos I took of the whole thing, okay?"

As oblivious as Sherlock often was to ordinary social customs, he knew 'go away and let me sleep' when he heard it. And that was hardly unfair of John. He probably hadn't got in six solid hours of sleep since the twins had been born.

"Okay," he said. "I have to go."

"Call me in the morning, okay? Let me know how you're getting on."

"Yes." After a pause, Sherlock ventured, "John…"

"Mmm?"

"… How, er. How are your girls?"

There was a short silence, as if John was taken aback. "They're okay," he said. "Charlie's her usual self. Molly's still tired and sore, but Mycroft's apartment is easier for her to get around than Baker Street, as long as she's not lifting or pulling anything. The twins have both been downgraded to the special care nursery, which is a good sign."

"Good," Sherlock said. "That's… that's good."

* * *

After hanging up the call, Sherlock flopped down on the bed and lit a cigarette, smoking in silence for half a minute before he heard the door handle turn. No need to get up or put the cigarette out: only Mycroft would barge in without knocking. After shutting the door behind him without a word, Mycroft took one of Sherlock's cigarettes from the packet, lit it, and went over to open the window. An icy breeze flowed into the room, the smoke on Mycroft's breath indistinguishable from its vapour.

"He's different to what I imagined," Sherlock remarked. On the bedside table beside him, his phone bleeped. Text from John, who sent things when he said he would. He picked the phone up to check: this newest letter was important.

"Oh? How so?"

Sherlock looked the photos of the Ripper's letter over in silence for a few seconds before answering. It was difficult to express that his father was different to what he'd imagined, because he'd imagined someone powerful. The father he'd barely remembered had always loomed in his thoughts as a sort of demi-god, with the power of life or death, not a selfish, pathetic man who had walked out on his marriage and children instead of taking responsibilities for a meaningless affair. "I wonder," he said at last. "What on earth he was doing living in a tacky place like this."

"Martine's influence, clearly."

"I hardly expected a former MI6 agent would be interested in kitschy Dresden lamps, though you know much more about that than I do." Sherlock held the phone out to him. "While we're here," he said, "we may as well discuss something important. The Whitechapel killer sent this letter to Lestrade this afternoon, along with half a human kidney, believed to belong to the most recent victim. What do you think?"

Myroft reached out and took the phone. "You might not like what I think," he warned.

"I'll take the risk."

With a sigh, Mycroft looked over the photograph John had sent him, twitching his fingers over the touchscreen to zoom in in places. Finally he said, "So we've progressed to cannibalism. I can't say I'm surprised."

"No."

"Some very odd discrepancies here, and I'm not referring to the idiosyncratic 'sor' and 'mishter', both of which sound like bad parodies of an Irish accent. See: he's spelled 'while' without the final vowel. A person who is semi-literate and knows there's a silent letter in there somewhere would be far more likely to spell it w-i-l-e."

"More dissembling from an educated killer."

"Or a double bluff," Mycroft said. "And here. It strikes me that while the former letters threw about capital letters at will, this one has misused only one—the K on kidney."

"One of the victims had an abusive ex-boyfriend," Sherlock said. "His name is Michael Kidney."

"And you're entertaining the idea that he wrote this, and capitalised the word out of habit," Mycroft said.

"It seems logical."

"It isn't. If this was Michael Kidney's work, one of two things would have occurred: either he would have made it more obvious by spelling 'kidney' correctly, or he would have hidden his identity by stealing another of Catherine Eddowes's bodily organs in the first place. I'm given to understand that he spent some time and effort removing her kidneys."

"John thinks it would have taken skill."

"I assume the police have taken handwriting samples to match against the letters?"

"Even Lestrade isn't incompetent enough to have left that out."

There was a companionable silence for a few moments. They listened to the sounds from the kitchen downstairs: the clink of cutlery, a murmured conversation between mother and daughter.

"What happened to Jemima?" Sherlock suddenly asked. He'd thought over the night his father had left the family more times than he cared to admit, but had rarely spared a thought for the girl at the centre of it all: Jemima Forrester, then his babysitter. At the time, he'd thought her incredibly grown up; as an adult, he reflected that she had probably been barely twenty-one years old, and his father forty-eight. Her forty-eight-year-old employer. It rankled more with each passing year.

"She was fired," Mycroft said.

"Clearly. I meant beyond that point."

"I don't know what happened to her after that. I don't remember seeing her after that day. Her fate doesn't particularly interest me…" There was a knock on the door, and Mycroft lunged for the window to dispose of his cigarette. Before he could quite do so, the door opened and Christabel came in.

"Sorry," she said. "Didn't mean to barge in on you. Either of you got a smoke? I haven't had one all day. Carsten's been hovering over me the whole time."

"I didn't know you smoked," Sherlock said, handing one over.

"Well, let's face it: you've barely seen me for an hour at a time so far," she said, lighting up and joining Mycroft at the open window. "But seriously? When I was a teenager. Now, only sometimes."

"Your teenage rebellion, I expect," Mycroft said.

"And you expect it because it was also yours, am I right?"

Silence.

"Thank you for coming," she said again, blowing a perfect smoke ring toward the middle of the room. The watched it waver and disappear. "I mean it. Even if he never regains consciousness, I'll… I mean, I thought I was going to go out of my mind with just Mom and Carsten. Mom gets hysterical. Carsten smothers. Knew I could rely on both of you to not even with that crap."

"You're fond of him," Mycroft remarked. "Of…"

She smiled, more with her teeth than with her eyes. "Kind of awkward, I know," she said. "'Your father', 'our father', what to call the guy, right? Yeah, I'm fond of him, and I don't want him to die." She took a deep breath, kneading her eyes with the fingertips of one hand. One of Mycroft's gestures.

No. One of their father's gestures.

"I know this is hard," she said. "I thought… you know, I just thought. Once he's gone, it's too late, for better or worse."

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock thought he saw Mycroft glance at him. He ignored it. He was thinking, again, of John Watson.


	24. Rage, Rage

Someone was knocking on the bedroom door.

Sherlock, half-asleep, had an idea that it was Mycroft, waking him up to bother him with something or another; perhaps there had been another crisis of government that he needed Sherlock to help him fix. He swatted at nothing and muttered _go 'way,_ but the knocking continued. He opened his eyes just in time to make out, in the darkness, it opening an inch or two. "Sherlock…?"

He sat up, not knowing for a few seconds where on earth he was. Then he remembered: he was in Washington D.C., USA, because his father had seen fit to live and die there after abandoning his real family. And on that note, the intruder wasn't Mycroft at all; it was Christabel. He hastened to let her in.

"What is it?" he demanded, dropping the volume of his voice to match hers. She was half-dressed, half still in her pyjamas, and her face was flushed, as if she'd been crying for a long time.

"The hospital called," she said in a choked voice. "They think this is it. You and Mycroft don't have to come, but I thought… I just thought I'd ask…"

"I'll come with you," he said. "I need two minutes to get dressed."

She left the room, shutting the door behind her, and Sherlock raced over to his suitcase, grabbing the first clean clothes to hand and listening to the house around him as he pulled them on. Mycroft's room, on the other side of the adjoining ensuite, was a similar flurry of furtive movement and urgency. Christabel was waiting for him in the hall, sniffing and sighing. In the kitchen below, he could hear what sounded like Martine crying and Carsten trying to comfort her. He picked up his phone and checked it before putting it in his pocket. It was twenty to five in the morning.

* * *

John had been right in one respect, at least: Mycroft's Chelsea Harbour apartment was bigger and easier to manage than 221a Baker Street, even allowing for Harry occupying the spare bedroom and Charlie temporarily sleeping in a cot at the foot of her parents' bed. John had never seen the apartment before, having an idea that this was very deliberate, that Mycroft's profession meant he needed somewhere in London that was top secret; but he'd been to Linwood twice, with its Elizabethan oak panelling and dark, narrow passages, and hadn't been expecting Mycroft's London address to be its exact opposite, a haven of chrome and glass and bright, airy openness. It occupied the entire penthouse of the twelve-storey building. The second and third floors housed businesses: a doctor's surgery, a supermarket, a hairdresser's, a cafe. It was designed so that your average reclusive millionaire need never leave it at all.

Dr. Creighton had been as good as her word in ordering Molly in-home care, both for her physical recovery and her emotional one. Her appointed therapist was a different woman to the one he'd seen at a hospital: a sonsy, friendly woman named Sandra. She arrived at the apartment right on eleven o'clock that morning, and John let her in and made both her and Molly coffee; after that, though, it was abundantly clear that his usefulness was at an end and his role was to make himself scarce. Charlie was down for a nap, and he wondered if he should call Sherlock; but of course, it was only six in the morning in America. While he was thinking this over, Harry, who had come out to the kitchen in search of something to eat, nudged him.

"They'll want the whole apartment," she said in his ear. "Privacy, you know? I've been meaning to check out that cafe on the second floor, though. Let's grab a coffee."

While John had to admit he was getting along with Harry much better these days than he'd been known to in the past, the two weren't in the habit of friendly sibling brunches. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. If she'd fallen off the wagon again…

"I can't," he said. "Charlie—"

"Charlie's fast asleep, and there's never been a better time to stop using her as your excuse," Harry said. "Come on—oh, that reminds me. I think I've left something under the seat of the car. You go grab it, I'll grab us a table and order."

They shared the lift in nervous silence most of the way down, parting on the second floor while John continued to the basement carpark and back again. By the time he arrived at the ominously-named Sal Paradise Cafe on the second floor, Harry had found a table on the right-hand side, half-obscured behind a novelty tank full of tropical fish. A fairly obvious ploy for privacy. He went over to her and put a mobile phone down on the table.

"Let me make a deduction," he said. "You didn't accidentally leave that in my car."

"Excellent, you're coming along." She pointed to the chair opposite. "Sit the fuck down. We need to talk."

John glanced back toward the cafe door, as if contemplating making a run for it, but there was nothing to be done. He sat down in grim silence, waiting.

"John, listen to me," she said. "Do you remember what I said to you the very first day I met Molly? I said _for God's sake, don't fuck this one up._ And I'm sorry to get critical here, but you are most certainly fucking things up now."

"Oh? And how's that?"

"You know how's that." She pointed to the phone. "Using your powers of observation, you've probably picked up that that's not mine. It's a burner phone. All I needed it for was its GPS system."

"Okay," he said quietly. "And how long has it been in my car?"

"Four days." She poured a little pile of salt onto the table and pushed the tip of one finger through it. "Not counting Tuesday night, when I took it out to recharge it."

"You're so desperate to find out about me that this is what you're resorting to?"

"Well, let's face it. Being straight with you wasn't working. I've got proof of that now."

He raised one eyebrow. "Proof of what?"

"That you've been lying every time you've left the house since you came back from Leeds…" She paused as a waitress came over to the table, bearing a tray with two flat whites on it. She took up hers and sipped it; John ignored his. "You said you were at the solicitor's the other day," she said. "So I checked."

"Doubt it," he said. "If you checked, you'd have found that I _was_ at the solicitors."

"Yes, for about half an hour," she said. "You were gone from the flat for over three hours that day. Where were you?"

"For Christ's sake, Harry, I don't remember. _Probably_ at the hospital with the twins."

She shook her head. "Not to put too fine a point on this," she said, "but I've had a bit of help in investigating this. You weren't. And frankly, the fact that you said you were is kind of gross, John."

"I didn't say I _was_. I said I was probably—"

She pointed to the phone. "You're lying to my face when you know I've got proof right here in front of me," she said. "You've always been terrible at telling a convincing lie, which makes me wonder why Molly hasn't thrown you out of the house yet. But okay, we'll do it this way. Who do you know who lives in Deramore Street, Crouch End?"

"Harry—"

"Nah, not me, but nice try. Who?"

"Listen, you can't just—"

"Because you've been there a _lot._ Three times in six days. Last Saturday, before all these murders kicked off, you were there for six hours. I'm pretty sure that was the day you left Charlie at my house all day while you said you were visiting Molly and the twins in hospital. What a shitty lie, John, using your sick wife and kids to cover your arse like that."

John swallowed hard, looking down at his coffee as if he'd never seen one before.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," she said. "You know I am. I was the detective in your life for years before you met Sherlock, you know? And I'd much prefer you get me there first and tell me what's going on before I jump to conclusions that wouldn't be fair to you."

"You've dragged me here to tell me you've bugged my car and made all sorts of assumptions about the kind of person I am," he said, standing up. "So don't tell me you're interested in being fair. Get to the bottom of it, then. Frankly, I don't think you've got much room to criticise, but what the hell would I know?"

"John—"

"Don't bother." He let the cafe door swing closed behind himself.

* * *

Once he'd made sure Matthew had made it to Hayley and Jake's place and wasn't particularly traumatised by the package he'd found on the front step, Lestrade returned to the office with Melissa. More paperwork, but important paperwork: parsing witness statements. It seemed like half of London had submitted one, though most of these, he knew from experience, were likely to be dead ends.

"At least some of them are entertaining," Melissa said brightly, from the other side of his desk where she was reading from a pile he'd handed her. She chuckled. "Reports of a clown with a black-painted mouth seen at Aldwych Station, 2am the night Martha Tabram died. Nice."

"If he also killed her," Lestrade said absently, "he can teleport. Which is well above the skills of most clowns."

Melissa was about to say more when there was a knock on the open office door. It was June Merivale, and for a change, she looked… rumpled. Cowlick in the back of her hair. Irregular breathing, as if she was trying to keep a lid on something.

"June, hi," he said. "What's up?"

Merivale glanced at Melissa. Then, obviously recognising her as the new Mrs. Lestrade, she came into the office and shut the door behind her. "Congratulations," she said bitterly. "Have your case back, then."

Lestrade's eyebrows shot up. For all that he'd been complaining about wanting the Ripper case back, he'd had to privately admit that it wasn't likely to happen. Any change of leadership destabilised a case, and was only ever done if something major happened to the lead investigator. "How do you mean?" he asked her.

"Hale's thrown me off."

"What? Why?"

"I'm sure you've heard all about that graffiti Dyer found in Goulston Street."

With monumental effort, Lestrade managed to not look at Melissa. "Yeah," he admitted. "He did mention it to me."

" _The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing._ Charming, right?"

"I still don't even know what it's driving at."

"Anti-Semitic shit-stirring is what it was driving at, especially since it was found above a woman's kidney and part of her bloody shirt. I told Dyer to wipe it off the wall, and he did. Took a photo, though, thinking I was dumb enough to fall for the 'look over there' trick. Did he send it to Hale?"

"No," Lestrade said, surprised at how easily and firmly the word had come out. "I can promise you that."

"How can you promise me that?"

"'Cause he didn't send it to me, too. Dyer's engaged to my daughter, and he doesn't sneeze without my permission. He wanted the photo to ask Sherlock Holmes what he thought, that's all."

"Well, it made its way to Hale, and he's bloody furious. About to take me down to sergeant."

Not having anything meaningful to say straight away, Lestrade took refuge in silence instead. Whether she was doing it purposefully or not, Merivale had just put him in one hell of a position. Hale was at the top of the pecking order; Dyer was at the bottom. And, he had to privately admit to himself, if Merivale had ordered key evidence to be destroyed because she got jumpy, she deserved to be thrown off the case. That sort of emotion-led irrationality wasn't like anything he knew of June Merivale. Anyhow, as Mel was bound to point out the second Merivale had left again, the Ripper wasn't sending macabre packages of human organs to Merivale's house.

"Hale hasn't said anything to me yet," he said, treading carefully. "But if he's seriously putting me back in as lead investigator, I want you to stay on and give me a hand."

"You can't. Hale will lose it."

"Hale needs somebody to solve this case. Sherlock Holmes is his best bet. And Sherlock's only involved because I am. Sit down, calm down, have some coffee." He handed her the top sheet of paper off the pile in front of Melissa. "Have some witness statements," he said. "Killer clown at Aldwych Station."

* * *

It seemed right, somehow, for Sherlock and Mycroft to get a cab back to Martine's house—now no longer Martine-and-Antony's house. The atmosphere in the hospital corridor had been bad enough. No doubt the atmosphere in a closed vehicle was going to be a nightmare.

When they finally arrived, they found Martine in the kitchen, making breakfast, dry-eyed and determined. Carsten was nowhere to be seen. Sherlock was about to ask where Christabel was when, through the kitchen window, he saw her sitting on a long garden seat on the back porch. She had a violet woollen cap pulled over her long dark hair and a white scarf around her neck; she was facing the garden, so he could see nothing of her expression, but her body language seemed clear enough. He looked at Mycroft, who silently waved him on. As he opened the porch door, he heard behind him Mycroft say something to Martine about being sorry for _her loss._

He sat beside Christabel, partly out of practicality; the only other options were to remain standing or sit on the steps, which were icy. There were tears streaming down her face, but she otherwise she seemed calm. Almost too calm. She kept her gaze on a ridge of houses on the horizon, though they weren't particularly interesting. Sherlock lit cigarettes for both of them and handed hers over, and she accepted it without question and took a shaky drag.

"I'm sorry," he finally said.

"Oh!" Christabel swiped aggressively at her eyes. "I'm not crying about him, you know."

"Yes," he said. "I know. You're crying because your marriage is over."

"I don't even want to know how you knew that," she said bitterly.

He took a drag of his cigarette.

"Fine," she said. "How did you know that? Some detail on Carsten's collar or something, I guess?"

"That might be feasible, if you weren't a continent away from Berlin," he said. "Actually, it's because you've done everything in your power to avoid your own husband from the second we set foot in this country. Nobody seeks out Mycroft's company unless they're trying to avoid someone else." Another drag. "Also," he said, "because you've referred to this house as 'home' four times this morning. There's always a transitional period when a person moves out of home where they still refer to the family home as their own. But you've been married, what, four years now?"

"Five."

"If it helps you make a clean break," he said, "Carsten's cheating on you anyhow. Brazilian woman with a ruby ring on her left hand, and—"

A bitter snort of laughter. "You're just making that up now."

"Okay, I'm making it up." He shrugged. "Just thought I'd be helpful."

"I don't think anything's going to help me today." She took a great, shuddering sigh. "Will you stay for the funeral?"

"We can't," he said, and part of him genuinely felt sorry that he couldn't. "I expect we'll be leaving tonight. Parliament's in shambles and Mycroft's barely keeping the Commonwealth afloat as it is."

More laughter. Sherlock wondered uncomfortably if this was shock, or the beginnings of something more sinister.

"Anyhow," he said, trying to ignore it for the time being. "I'm in the middle of a case."

"A case? What kind?"

"Murder. A serial killer." It was just past one-thirty in the afternoon in London, and John hadn't called him yet. Sherlock didn't know whether to take that as a good sign or not.

"God," she said. "And here's me dragging you all the way out here to watch someone you don't even like die."

"I'm not sorry I came out here," Sherlock said. "I rarely do things I regret. But we may as well admit that whatever either of us hoped to get out of this… didn't happen."

She wiped her eyes again and nodded.

"I came because you were… insistent," he ventured. "You've been insistent in general since the day I called you."

"Oh, yes, of course," she said. "You must think I'm out of my mind to behave the way I do. Christa the clingy weirdo, who thinks she's everyone's best friend."

"I don't understand it," he said carefully. "Perhaps if you explained it to me, I might."

She pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them. "You always had Mycroft," she said. "Always, from the minute you were born. Who did I have? Nobody!"

"You have your mother," Sherlock said. "I know I'm supposed to view her as a wicked stepmother, but you seem fond of each other."

"Oh, Mom's okay," she conceded.

For a moment, Sherlock considered telling her about his own mother; considered telling her of the years he only remembered her as someone who snapped at him when he made too much noise or touched something he shouldn't; of the lonely years in boarding school where he alternated between eating his heart out longing for his mother and brother, and not knowing why he should when they obviously didn't care much about him.

"He was disappointed in you," he said. "Because you weren't…"

"Because I wasn't a genius, like you and Mycroft. Like his real kids."

Sherlock blinked. "You knew, then?" he said. "You told me—"

"I didn't know you and Mycroft existed until I was in my teens," she said. "But when I found out, it all made sense. All those report cards I was too scared to take home. All those homework sessions where he would look at me like, _you stupid, stupid girl."_

"Christa," Sherlock said. "You're not stupid."

"Oh, but I am!"

"No. You're not." He tasted something acrid and realised he'd burned to the filter of his cigarette. Absent-mindedly, he stood up and threw it into an icy puddle at the foot of the porch stairs. "Do you know," he said, "I was in my thirties before I realised the earth goes round the sun. John Watson had to tell me."

She blinked. "What?"

"I thought orangutans were mythical creatures until I saw one in a zoo."

"You did not."

"I was thirty."

"Sherlock!"

"I couldn't tie my own shoes until I was seven. And you know the front door of my flat at Baker Street? I've walked straight into it when it was closed."

"No!"

"More than once."

"Sherlock—"

"So hard, once, my nose started bleeding."

By this time she was laughing so hard more tears were streaming down her face, and he had a moment of wondering what he'd do if Martine came out, demanding to know why Christabel was laughing herself sick when her father had just died.

"My point is," he said, "We may as well admit it—we're _all_ a bit stupid sometimes, and you no more than anyone else. I've only realised this in the last few years. Perhaps I was _too stupid_ to realise it before."

"Oh, Sherlock." She wiped her eyes with the end of her scarf and looked up at him, blue eyes dancing. "It just… we could have been friends, you know. If it weren't for… all this awkwardness."

"We can be friends," he said, sitting down again beside her. "When I go back to England, perhaps you could… ring me sometimes."

He had a vague idea that the right thing to do would be to put an arm around her—and that she'd punch him if he tried it.

And people wondered why human interactions confused him.


	25. She Fought Hard for Her Life

**_A/N:_** _Considerable amounts of gore in this chapter. If you think it should be bumped up to an M, please let me know._

 _Because they constitute important clues: The details of Mary Kelly's murder scene and injuries come from contemporary police and autopsy reports, as well as photographs of the body in situ. The only two details I have knowingly changed are: I have no idea how many bottles were on the mantelpiece, and Kelly's dirty clothes were, in accordance with 19th century custom, folded and put on a chair, not in a washing basket._

 _Thanks, again, for supporting this fic. We're now on the final stretch and everything's about to come together. xx_

* * *

"You're sure you don't want us to take you to the airport?" Martine asked plaintively, watching Sherlock and Mycroft arrange their luggage on the front drive. It was bitterly cold, but it had felt natural for them to wait outside for the arrival of the taxi they'd ordered. They were due, after a few phone calls on Mycroft's part, to fly out of Dulles at 5pm.

"It's okay," Sherlock said, feeling that it was high time he stopped using Mycroft as an interpreter between them. "There'll be more room in a cab, and you have a lot to be getting on with here."

 _Funeral. For God's sake, just say it: they're busy planning to put my father in a box and lower him into the ground. Funeral._

"I'm sorry I haven't been a better hostess," she said.

It was on the tip of Sherlock's tongue to apologise for not being a better guest, though he could not have explained why. "It's okay," he said again, lamely.

"Mom," Christabel said. "Could you go in and put coffee on? I think we could all do with it."

As ordinary as Martine Bernier-Holmes might have been, this didn't amount to stupidity. "Well, goodbye," she said, glancing at Mycroft as if to include him in her farewell. "Keep in touch, won't you?"

"Yes," Mycroft said. "Of course."

Sherlock hid a smirk behind his hand. If Mycroft kept in touch with Martine ever again, he'd be sincerely shocked. He watched his stepmother go back into the house and close the door behind her before turning to Christabel again.

"You have my number," he said. "Just in case…" He glanced at Carsten, who was with Mycroft at the other end of the drive and just out of earshot if they kept their voices low. The two were having another conversation in German, which struck Sherlock not only as showing off on Mycroft's part, but unnecessary showing off. He, Christabel and Martine all spoke fluent conversational German, and Carsten spoke perfect English.

"Oh?" Christabel raised one eyebrow. "Just in case of what?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Oh, I don't know," he said, glancing down the street at nothing in particular. "Just in case you suspect your ex-husband has killed five prostitutes."

She laughed. A brief discussion about Carsten after lunch had revealed exactly as Sherlock had suspected: Carsten and Christabel's marriage breakdown had been an organic thing. They were a couple who had met and married too young, who were simply sick of each other after twelve years together, and both were itching to move on.

"Will you go back to Berlin?" Sherlock asked her.

"I suppose I'll have to, eventually," she said. "There'll be a custody battle over the dogs."

"Will you need a detective for that?"

"No," she said, smiling. "I might need a brother, though."

"Then I suggest Mycroft. If Carsten challenges for full custody, Mycroft can just have him murdered."

She laughed, a harsh, nasal burst, and glanced guiltily toward the front door. "So could you, I bet!"

"Of course. I'll forward you my resume." After two false starts, he gave her a brief, awkward hug. "Take, er, care," he said, though this felt more difficult than the hug. They watched the bounce of headlights as a cab pulled into the end of the street. "I'll keep in touch."

"Heard that before," Christabel said.

"I came when you asked me to, didn't I?"

"Yes," she said, smiling again, though she was starting to cry. "Yes, you did. Thank you."

* * *

Melissa woke in the darkness to find herself alone in bed, and the furrow beside her where Greg should have been sleeping was cold. She picked up her phone from the bedside table, squinting in the glare from the touch-screen: 12:32am.

Getting up, she put a dressing gown and slippers on and went shivering out onto the landing. There was a light on in the kitchen downstairs and she pattered down to find her husband sitting at the kitchen table, trying to concentrate on his open laptop and his phone screen at the same time. Instantly, she understood: most of his team had gone back out to the streets of Whitechapel that night, trawling pubs and clubs, looking for anything suspicious. Now with two broken ribs, a cracked sternum and two black eyes, Greg had been obliged to absent himself from all the fun and leave Donovan in charge instead. That didn't mean, however, that he was going to be content to do something as sensible as go to bed and sleep while everything was going on without him.

"Anything interesting happening?" she asked, sliding her arm around his shoulders.

"Mmm," he said vaguely, so that it was impossible for her to tell whether he meant 'yes' or 'no'. "Donovan says she and Cowley have been approached by a couple of your garden-variety sleazes, but nothing that suggests the guy wanted to drag them into the nearest alley and gut them."

"You know," Melissa said, "that's the bit of this guy's profile that I can't quite work out."

He glanced up at her. "What?"

"Annie Chapman told you she was afraid of someone," she went on, going to fill the kettle at the kitchen tap. "And then a few hours later, she went into an unlit backyard with her killer."

"She was afraid of Pizer," he reminded her. "And it obviously wasn't him, so."

"No, clearly not, but Greg, listen. I know you think _I'm_ indestructible, but let me tell you what we women do to protect ourselves when we're out on our own. We wait for the elevator to clear so we're not stuck in one with a creeper. We change our jogging routes all the time, and don't wear headphones while we're on them. We watch each other's drinks when we need to go to the pub loo. We bunch our keys in our hand like some sort of Samurai weapon when we have to walk to our car alone in the dark. And I would have thought this'd be even more of a thing among sex workers, who are so vulnerable. Yet after she told you she was afraid, afraid enough to talk to a man she seriously thought was going to arrest her for soliciting, Annie picks up a client? That doesn't make sense."

"She was drunk."

She bit her lip, considering this. "Maybe," she said. "And Liz Stride might've been a bit boozy too, depending on what the post-mortem report says. But Catherine Eddowes had literally just got out of three hours in the drunk tank. Even if she'd had a drink the second she got out, it wouldn't have had time to properly hit her. She'll probably have a blood alcohol reading of some kind, but for the most part? She was sober. And she went into Mitre Square with someone while sober."

"Someone that Neil should have seen," Lestrade muttered.

"Hmm?"

"While we're talking about things that bother us," he said, pushing his chair back a little and sighing. "Look, I don't think Jack Neil is the Ripper or anything stupid like that, but if he was where he _said_ he was, he was in Mitre Square at the same time as Catherine Eddowes and her murderer."

Melissa, pulling cups out of the cupboard above the stove, pondered this. "Is it possible?" she asked. "Sherlock thinks the Ripper was still in the club carpark after killing Liz Stride when Louis Diemschutz pulled into it, but nobody saw him. I haven't been to Mitre Square in person, but what's the lighting like? I've seen quite a few public squares with dodgy corners where the street lights never reach."

"I wasn't there either," he reminded her. "But patrol officers carry torches, and if Neil didn't have one, or it wasn't working, he was required to report that. Why would he say he checked the square if he didn't?"

"You're sure he's not the Ripper?"

Lestrade shook his head. "And I'm not just sticking up for a fellow police officer, either. The man who killed Catherine Eddowes also killed Liz Stride, and there's no evidence Neil was so far off course on his beat. If he'd rushed over to Henriques Street to kill Stride, then raced back again, he'd have been absent from his beat for anywhere from forty minutes to an hour, and he'd have been seen coming to and from."

"Sure?"

"He'd have had to cross Commercial Road, Mel. And while he wouldn't have got all that bloodstained from murdering Liz Stride, he'd have been covered in it by the time he was finished with Catherine Eddowes. We saw him a few minutes later, in his uniform, with no chance of having changed. There wasn't a mark on him."

"And then," she mused. "I suppose Neil had an airtight alibi for when the kidney was dumped, because he was talking to Donovan and Sherlock. What about the letter?"

"We sent handwriting samples to a forensic handwriting specialist in Virginia," he said, lifting his phone for a second. "She hasn't got back with the official word yet. To a non-expert, though, it looks like it was written by a different person. We all agreed."

"I thought so," she said mildly. "Two murderers?"

"Two letter-writers, anyway, but I don't think we can rule out a hoax. Sharon Knowles from Barts, who did the autopsies—Molly swears by that woman, and she says the killings were all done by the same hand."

"A hoax? He sent the victims' jewelry to you and Sherlock. And how could he have known about the murders so quickly?"

"No, they mean, the 'From Hell' letter is the hoax. It was sent out after news had broke locally about the double murder—you know how quick Twitter is to get onto these things. Anderson and now Sharon are saying the kidney is human and matches the part Dyer found in Goulston Street, but the DNA results haven't come back to prove it. And Sharon pointed out that the letter-writer said he'd _preserved_ it."

"Was it preserved?"

"Yes, in gin, which means it'd still be edible. But why preserve something for a couple of hours?"

"So what's that mean?"

He shrugged. "Sharon says really old medical specimens were sometimes preserved in gin. Even if it's a human kidney, it could be a hundred years old, and no connection with Eddowes at all."

"Just our luck," she muttered, giving his shoulder another supportive squeeze. "Come on," she said. "Back to bed."

"Mel—"

"Gregory, we're still, technically speaking, _on our honeymoon,"_ she said, giving his arm a firm tug. "I'm absolutely determined to be the career-supportive wife that Julie wasn't, but there are limits. I don't know where mine are yet, so let's not try to find them, okay?"

* * *

It was several minutes after eight in the morning when Sherlock and Mycroft touched down at Heathrow. Sherlock's mobile phone functioned almost as an extra limb; once they'd made their way through security and customs, he lost no time in setting it to rights. A number of missed calls, all time-stamped in the last twenty minutes; it was no surprise when, before he could check any of them, the phone rang. Lestrade, judging from the caller ID. "Hello?"

"Sherlock?" Lestrade sounded surprised, as if he hadn't quite expected him to pick up the call. "You're back then?"

"Yes, and you're calling me in desperation when you had no idea if I was even on English soil. Another murder?" Sherlock glanced at Mycroft, who rolled his eyes, then up at the digital clock on the far wall of the terminal. 10:06am.

"Dorset Street, Spitalfields. John's here with me already. But if you've just touched down—"

"I'm not jetlagged." Sherlock turned his back on Mycroft, who huffed again. "Give me the exact address. I'll be there as soon as I can."

* * *

Miller's Court was a little square of pavement off Dorset Street, Spitalfields, forming the adjoining of three warehouses on the north, east and west sides, and a dilapidated block of flats to the south. It was here that all the drama seemed to be happening. Police tape cordoned off a gathering crowd of neighbours and general rubberneckers at the far end of the square. As Sherlock, a little more bleary-eyed than he cared to admit, came through the northern archway, he nearly collided with a PC with two bloodhounds pulling on a lead.

The murder had taken place inside this time, judging from the constabulary crowded around the doorway of a ground-floor flat, most of them from Bishopsgate, Brick Lane and Wood Street. Sherlock did not know any of them from sight, but they clearly knew him; nobody challenged his entrance, and one went to the closed flat door and knocked furtively on it. A few feet away, John was sitting on a low stone wall adjacent to the building, swiping at his face with the back of his hand. Sherlock quickened his step. John was shaking and grey-faced, like he was about to vomit.

"John—"

He looked up. "Jesus, Sherlock," he said in blank astonishment. "When did you get back?"

"I've come straight from the airport," Sherlock said. "What happened?"

"Murder."

"Very funny."

John shook his head and swallowed heavily. "You know how we were always wondering what this guy would do if he really jumped off the deep end?" He pointed vaguely in the direction of the flat door. "I think we just found out."

Before Sherlock could decide whether to demand more information from John or go to investigate for himself, the flat door opened and Greg Lestrade appeared in the doorway. He was head to tow in protective clothing, shoe covers and gloves.

"Sherlock," he said hoarsely, exchanging a glance with the nearest PC and taking a few steps out. "Hi. I'm still waiting on Donovan and Dyer—they were out on the town all night again."

"Victim?" Sherlock, predictably, could not have cared less about the clubbing adventures of the Metropolitan Police's finest murder detectives.

"Listen, if you can tell me this isn't the Ripper and it's some sick domestic one-off, I'd be really grateful. The victim is Mary Jane Kelly, according to neighbours, sometimes known as Mary Jeanette. Twenty-five, lived here on her own."

Sherlock raised one eyebrow. "That," he mused. "Now, that's… interesting. A totally different murder location to the other five women, and apparently a completely different woman, too." He mused a few more seconds. "She's Caucasian?"

Lestrade shrugged. "Sure," he said. "I'm guessing."

"You're _guessing?"_

"Come have a look." Lestrade steered him toward the door. John got up again, following, uninvited and unhindered. "I've got to warn you, Sherlock. There's not much of her left."

After stepping inside the tiny bedsit, Sherlock immediately appreciated why John had been sweating. The room felt like a blast furnace, despite the icy air drifting in through a broken window on one side of the battered-down door. There was an old-fashioned Georgian plaster fireplace in one corner, and in it, a fire was dying; it had blazed up so fiercely that there were scorch marks in the plaster and an old-fashioned copper kettle that had been hanging over it had partially melted. After a cursory glance at it, though, Sherlock had more to concern himself than the fireplace.

What had once been a woman lay on a bare mattress in one corner.

Sherlock's observation skills were superior to all others, but his eyesight was entirely ordinary, and he'd just made the transition from a glaring grey winter's morning to a dark, small-windowed flat. He stood staring blankly at the bed and its surrounds for a good half a minute, in growing clarity as to what exactly what he was looking at.

Apart from the vaguely human shape, only two things indicated the form on the bed had once been a woman: a cascade of long, grubby blonde hair cascaded over the equally dirty pillow, and one white arm lay across, and partly into, what had once been her abdomen. The other lay limp at her side. Even from the other side of the room, Sherlock could see deep, jagged wounds in her hands and forearms. Mary Kelly had fought hard for her life. Aside from the fireplace and the bed, there was little else in the room except a table beside the bed, now bearing macabre lumps of the woman's flesh, and a washing basket at the end of the bed, heaped high with clothes that were now flecked with blood. Sherlock got down on his heels beside the basket, carefully sifting through the contents without smearing the bloodstains.

"How long has law enforcement been here?" he asked, standing up again. "And how many people have been through this crime scene?"

"I've been here just over an hour," Lestrade said. "The local force got here half an hour before me, and John was fifteen minutes after. But you're in luck, because so far the only people who've actually been through the door are Inspector Beck from the Brick Lane constabulary, the forensic photographer, John, and me. I managed to hold everybody else off." Lestrade went to the doorway and called for someone, and a heavy-set, middle-aged man in police uniform appeared in the doorway and came in.

"Mr. Holmes," he said. "I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad you're acquainted," Lestrade interjected before Sherlock could reply. "Sherlock's good, Walter. You can trust him."

"And this is Dr. John Watson," Sherlock said, pointing vaguely in John's direction and giving most of his attention to the corpse again. "If you can trust me, you can also trust him. John, ordinarily I embrace my philosophy that anyone with functioning eyesight and a reasonable level of intelligence can effectively observe a crime scene. On some occasions, however, I'm prepared to admit that an expert might be needed. Talk me through these injuries."

John raised one eyebrow. "I'm hardly an expert," he said. "And she's all over the room, Sherlock."

"Yes. The killer has made a mess of her, possibly to taunt or confuse us. Do your best."

John glanced at Lestrade, who nodded. With a put-upon sigh, he indicated for Sherlock to let him get past him and closer and leaned over the bed, looking the dead woman over.

"Throat slashed, probably all the way down to the bone," he finally said. "With the majority of the blood on the right-hand side of the mattress, splashed on the wall, and on the floorboards on the right-hand side of the bed. She was moved after she bled out, which was probably her cause of death."

"She grappled with her killer for the knife," Sherlock said.

"Yeah, there are some deep defensive wounds." John indicated them. "Horrible way to go, but at least I'm pretty sure she was dead when the next part happened. Abdominal cavity emptied out and thighs flayed down to the bone. The perineum and the flesh from her thighs are over there." He nodded toward the table beside the bed, where two shapeless lumps of flesh were sitting.

"Why there?" Lestrade asked.

"First convenient place to hand," Sherlock said.

John continued, grimacing, "Her face is gashed in all directions, with her nose, cheeks, eyebrows and ears either removed or partly removed." He gestured helplessly to where the woman's face had once been. "I can't tell you what kind of knife it was, except that it would have been sharp."

"Interesting..."

"I'd have called it something else, Sherlock," John said, at the same time that Lestrade asked, "What's interesting?"

"For her blood to have spurted out onto the wall, her head would have to have been turned to the right," Sherlock said, ignoring John's admonition. "It's turned to the left now."

"Greeting whoever was first to walk in," Lestrade said. Then, seeing John's expression, "Sorry, John. Go on."

"The whole of the abdominal cavity's been emptied out," John continued. "That's her spleen here on the left side, and her liver between her feet." Gingerly, he tilted her head toward himself. "Yep," he muttered. "Thought so."

"What?"

"He's left her uterus and kidneys under her head." He checked again before gently laying her head down again. "Along with what looks like one of her breasts…"

But by now, Sherlock seemed to no longer be paying attention. He was looking at the fire again, it seemed; or at least, he was looking at the mantlepiece, where three glass bottles were lined up as a forlorn attempt at domestic decoration. He went over to it, leaning perilously close to the dying fire to inspect the shelf itself.

"… Sherlock…?"

"One of these glass bottles is missing," he said.

"How can you tell?"

"Dust." Sherlock gingerly touched the shelf, as if it, too, were hot. "You can respace three bottles to occupy the space of four, but you can't rearrange the dust underneath them, and Mary Kelly was a poor housekeeper."

"Okay, so there's a bottle missing. What's that got to do with anything?"

Sherlock, ignoring this, went back to the door. Inspector Beck moved aside to let him examine the broken window pane next to it. "Broken," he said thoughtfully, "but not recently. The shards have been cleared and moved away."

"Yeah," Beck said. "It was like that when we got here."

"And it was your officers who broke down the door?"

Beck nodded. "Tom Bowyer from Todd's Estate Agents found the body, sir. Came around to collect the victim's late rent and saw her through the window—"

"Inspector, where's the key to this flat?"

"We don't know." Walter shot Lestrade a shame-faced glance, as if to appeal for help. "If it's here, we haven't found it."

"I need every piece of information available on this woman," Sherlock said briskly. "More specifically: She has a boyfriend, or an ex-boyfriend, who lived in this flat with her, but who moved out about two weeks ago. I need to interview him. Now."


	26. A Violet from Mother's Grave

**A/N:** _Thanks again for reading and supporting this fic! This chapter was easily the hardest I've written in years. It might be a little stodgy, full of information and low on feels… but we'll have plenty of feels later. Sincerely, thank you, if you make it to the end of this primer on the murder of Mary Jane Kelly._

 _While I've changed the given names of some witnesses because every second person in Victorian London was named Mary, and amended some items of dress so they're more modern, details about the crime, the timeline, the suspects and the witnesses are as in real life. xx_

* * *

Tom Bowyer, credited as the first person to have laid eyes on the murdered woman's corpse, was a thin, rabbitty little man with coke-bottle glasses and a mouth that always fell a little open, revealing teeth that were none-too-clean. The sort of witness that put Greg Lestrade's hackles up, though there seemed to be nothing to implicate him in the death of Mary Kelly, and the greatest detective in the world was all but ignoring him.

The flat directly upstairs from Mary Kelly's had been occupied by an Emma Miller, a thirty-one-year-old widow who looked fifty-one. She was probably on the game herself, Lestrade decided, but on hearing what had happened to her downstairs neighbour, she was clearly evaluating her life choices. She was also very amenable to the Metropolitan Police's request to use her flat as a temporary base. Apart from anything else, they'd offered her a free and indefinite stay at a four-star hotel in compensation, which was compulsion enough to leave her living quarters without the additional prospect of a demented murderer at large in the area.

But she'd been obliged to leave behind one thing: her elderly retriever, Bella. Bella had been hanging about the working detectives all morning, getting herself alternatively petted and tripped over. Lestrade, either through fondness or distraction, hadn't ordered her to be removed. She lay on the floor near the desk he'd commandeered, and where he'd spent two hours accumulating various witness statements and other evidence that would help track the last few hours of Mary Kelly's life. Sherlock, meanwhile, had stationed himself at the other end of the room and was arranging the incoming information into a disjointed visual map, connected by cunning little arrows and colour-coded in a way that only made sense to himself. John was wandering between the two of them, making the occasional remark of encouragement but wisely not attempting to interfere. In the midst of this chaos, police in uniform from Brick Lane and Bishopsgate were wandering in and out bearing news and witness statements, and so were the Metropolitan Detectives Lestrade usually worked with. Absent were Donovan and Dyer: he'd sent them out to find anything they could on Mary Kelly's mysterious ex-boyfriend. Since that was likely to take some time, Lestrade had invited Tom Bowyer up to their temporary headquarters to interview him, and he stood on the rug in the middle of the room, wringing his hands like a guilty schoolboy and casting the occasional glance at Bella, as if he expected to be viciously mauled at any moment.

"You're not in trouble or anything," Lestrade was saying sympathetically, pretending to be absorbed in the notes in front of him. "It's no crime to come around and knock on someone's door. Did you know Mary Kelly?"

Bowyer shook his head. "Seen her in person once or twice in the last year—it's Mr. McCarthy that usually deals with our tenants in Miller's Court, sir."

"But not today."

"He's off sick, sir. But he left notes saying that Mary Kelly at number 13 was a month behind in her rent, and that I was to go over to her this morning and get the money."

"And if she didn't have it?" John asked him, disgusted. "What were you going to do then?"

Sherlock silenced him with a glance. "That's not relevant," he said, "because it never happened. Mr. Bowyer, just tell us everything that _did_ happen."

"I came by about nine-thirty," Bowyer said. "Knocked on the door, but nobody answered. So then…" He gave Lestrade another furtive look. "I didn't mean anything illegal by it, or anything, but I thought I'd just check on her, okay? 'Cause she had the fire going and everything, and I didn't think she'd leave the flat with it like that. So I looked in through the curtains…"

"How?" John asked him. "Curtains are on the inside of windows."

"Yeah, but there was a hole smashed in that window, right?" Bowyer sounded aggrieved. "I poked me hand through and pushed them aside a bit, and that's when I seen—I mean, that's when I _saw_ her. It put the fear of God into me, let me tell you. I tried to open the door, but it was locked, so I called the police. Mr. Beck came with some men in uniform and they couldn't get in either. They told me to go away, but I sat down there…" He pointed to the other side of the court… "and watched."

"What happened?"

"Nothing, for a bit. Then they got a big white battering ram and smashed the door through. That was about half an hour before you arrived, sir," he said, nodding to Lestrade.

Lestrade thought this one through. The timing, at least, checked out. He'd only been called once Beck had broken down the door and seen the state of that room.

"I suppose you can't tell us if Mary Kelly ever mentioned someone she was afraid of," he said, "anyone who's started hanging around recently…?"

Bowyer shook his head. "Would hardly have confided in me, Mr. Lestrade," he said. "I know she came in recently to have her boyfriend's name taken off the lease, so I'm assuming they split up."

"What was that boyfriend's name?" Sherlock asked him. He'd already sent off a flurry of texts to his Homeless Network contacts asking the same thing.

"Joe," he said promptly. "Joe… Barrett? Burnett…? No, pretty sure it was _Barnett._ They were both on the lease for a good long while, a year at least."

"When did she came in to have his name taken off?" Sherlock continued.

"Uh, well…" Bowyer considered this. "Before New Year, for certain. We were closed over Christmas and Boxing Day, and the 27th and 28th I was on leave. So had to have been either the 29th or the 30th of December. I remember thinking they must've busted up over Christmas."

"People do," Sherlock said. "Did she make any comment about the split?"

"No," was the disappointing answer. "Just said he wasn't living there no more—um, anymore. Nothing about being afraid of him or of him bashing her about, and she didn't leave a forwarding address for him."

"Did she hand in his key?'' Sherlock persisted.

Bowyer shrugged. "You'd have to check with the records," he said, "but if she still had it, Mr. McCarthy would have sent me to collect that too, right?" He glanced toward the door, as if desperate to get out of the room. Seeing this, Lestrade nodded.

"Okay," he said. "Off you go. Leave your contact details with DC Cowley and stay in the area, okay? You're a witness in a criminal investigation, and you'll be needed at the inquest."

Tom Bowyer left the room so quickly he all but left a trail of dust behind him. In the silence that followed, they heard Cowley sharply bring him to heel and a murmured exchange between them as Bowyer left his details, as requested.

"Do you believe him?" Lestrade asked Sherlock.

"Yes," Sherlock said. "He has no reason to lie. Clearly shaken by what he saw, and had neither the means nor the motive to commit any of these crimes."

Before Lestrade could ask John what he thought, they all heard more footsteps on the stairs. There was a knock at the door, and Bella, still on the floor beside Lestrade's chair, raised her head and gave a little _ruff_ of warning.

"Come in," Lestrade said, recognising the knock and not in the least surprised when Philip Anderson opened the door, with Cowley at his shoulder. God, even _dogs_ disliked Anderson.

"Take a seat," he said, pointing to the vacant one he'd offered Tom Bowyer. "And Cowley, stay here and listen in, okay?"

Cowley, nodding, took up a position at parade rest just inside the door, the better to hear anyone approaching via the staircase. Lestrade ignored this.

"Anderson," he said. "Good news or bad news?"

"To be honest, I'm not quite sure," Anderson said. "It's news, put it that way. I'm putting Mary Kelly's approximate time of death between three and four o'clock this morning, based on crime scene temperature and the progress of rigor mortis. I'm going to need to wait for the post-mortem results and get Gifford's opinion, but I don't think she'll disagree, or not by much, so I don't see any harm in you hearing about it now."

Cowley glanced at Lestrade in alarm.

"Cowley? Come on, if you've got something, let's have it."

"It's just, sir," she said. "I've interviewed two independent witnesses who saw Mary alive and well at eight o'clock this morning."

"Bollocks," Lestrade said. "Even if your time of death is a bit off, Anderson, she was dead when Bowyer called the police at half-past nine, and it would have taken this guy hours to get through all those mutilations and leave."

"I'd love to know what he was wearing when he did," Anderson said.

"What?"

"There was a bundle of clothes in the fireplace," Sherlock interjected. "Didn't you see? Or what was left of clothes, anyhow. He would have been covered in blood by the time he was done with her, and his clothes completely ruined. He used alcohol as a mild flame accelerant—probably gin or vodka."

Anderson nodded. "The contents of the fireplace have been picked up and taken back to the lab," he said, "but I think there may also have been human tissue in those ashes."

"I know there were," Sherlock said.

John looked up at him, but Lestrade, if he'd heard this remark, didn't. "So he burned his own clothing in the fireplace," he mused. "Makes sense, I guess, though I'm now wondering how he left again without being noticed. Mary didn't even have a wardrobe to keep her own clothes in—all of hers were in one drawer for clean, and a washing basket for dirty."

"Maybe he was wearing _her_ clothes…?" Anderson ventured. "You know, as a disguise—"

"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock said. "A small woman can disguise herself in oversized men's clothes at a pinch; a man has much less chance of disguising himself in the clothing of a woman who was both ultra-feminine and barely five feet tall. He'd have looked less conspicuous if he'd left the flat naked."

"How come nobody saw him leave?" John asked.

"They did see him leave," Sherlock said. "Though perhaps they haven't realised it yet. And yes, it was via the door, dressed in perfectly ordinary clothes. There was something _very_ unusual about how he left, but neither of you have commented on it, though it's ridiculously obvious."

Lestrade wasn't prepared to humour Sherlock while he was being an arse, though he was mulling this one over in his mind; judging from his expression, John was, too. "And you're saying that man was her partner," he said, "this Joe Barnett guy?"

"I'm not telling you anything," Sherlock said, "Except that I want Barnett brought here to be interviewed."

Something about his lofty tone put Lestrade's teeth on edge. A woman had been horribly murdered and mutilated, and her corpse was still in place on the bed downstairs. This was not the time, if there ever was a time, for Sherlock to show off.

"You don't think he's skipped the country by now?" John asked, though it wasn't clear if he was addressing Sherlock or Lestrade. "I'm assuming you're bringing him in as a suspect, not a witness. If he did it—"

"He'll come when he's found," Sherlock said, now absorbed in his phone, which was going off at a great rate.

"Well, if you could find out where he _is_ , that'd help," Lestrade said.

"Buller's Boarding House," he replied promptly, indicating his phone. "Three good sources in a row have just said the same thing. It's otherwise known as 24-25 New Street, Bishopsgate."

"I'll pass that on," Lestrade said wearily, picking up his own phone to text Donovan and Dyer. "You said he wouldn't do this," he said, distractedly thumbing out his message. "The murderer. You said he wouldn't kill another one when he knew there was nobody in London to show off to, Sherlock."

"Maybe he didn't know you were away…?" John ventured.

Sherlock shook his head. "He knew," he said. "I was wrong about him."

The sheer gravity of Sherlock ever admitting he was wrong—and in front of Philip Anderson—was so enormous that nobody in the room could think of anything to say for a good half a minute.

Anderson fidgeted. "Well," he said at last. "I need to get back to work…"

"Sure," Lestrade said, though he was clearly on autopilot. Bella had her head resting on his knee, and he absently stroked her ears. "Let me know straight away if you have any important updates, okay?"

Anderson promised before clattering back down the staircase. They could hear a door slam somewhere in the corridor. Out in the courtyard, a woman was crying.

"Sir," Cowley said. "I just had a call from the desk sergeant at Bishopsgate Station. George Hutchinson's gone in there to give a witness statement."

Lestrade looked up. "What," he said, "for _this_ murder?"

She nodded. "I've asked them to send it through when it's written, but the short story is, he was coming out of the Ten Bells in Commercial Street and walking up toward Dorset Street when he came across Mary Kelly, who he said he knew vaguely from the Whitechapel Mission. She asked him for some money, and he said he didn't have any. She walked off in the same direction he was going, but further up the street, he says she met a man and took him into the court, like he was a client. Same guy everyone else is describing, sir. Thirty-odd, dark hair, hat pulled down, dark overcoat, shorter than average."

"What time was this?" Lestrade asked her.

"Two, from memory. He said he saw them go into her flat, but by the time he left at three, neither of them had come out."

"What we need," Sherlock said, "is a proper chronological view of exactly what happened on this street last night. John, where was she earlier in the evening?"

Partly to make some use of him, and partly because he was concise and organised, Lestrade had tasked John with compiling a rough timeline of Mary Kelly's movements the night before, based on witness statements and confirmed sightings. He shuffled through the loose pages in front of him, squinting for a second in a way that prompted Lestrade and Sherlock to exchange an amused glance. For all his efforts, John had the unmistakable handwriting of a left-handed doctor, and even he had to admit that the problem was getting worse over the years, not better.

"One of her neighbours, Madeline Cox at number five, said she came in at a quarter to midnight and saw Kelly come into the court ahead of her from the Commercial Street end with a man who was short, dark-haired, wearing an overcoat and had a dark hat pulled over his eyes. About thirty-five years old, she said."

"Which means he could've been six feet tall, and aged between twenty-five and fifty," Lestrade muttered.

"Or completely non-existent," Sherlock said. "Though it's likely Cox saw her with a client of some description. As Pearly Poll was so kind to point out, sex workers of Kelly's type rarely stay with their clients for long. Go on, John."

John, looking a little annoyed at having been interrupted, continued, "This woman, Madeline, followed them into the court, and the two women said goodnight. She said Kelly was more than a bit drunk and said she was going to sing. And she did, apparently. The whole court heard her for ages. 'A Violet from Mother's Grave', just, if you're interested in what the song was."

"I'm not," Sherlock said.

"Half past midnight," John went on, "A Catherine Pickett, who lives just across the way, had had enough of the singing and told her husband she was going over to have words with her, but he stopped her. Madeline Cox went out again around one. Kelly was still singing. She'd stopped by one-thirty, because an Elizabeth Prater, who lives across the corridor over there—" he pointed toward the door with his pen—"said there was no noise coming out of her flat by the time she rolled in from the pub at one-thirty, though she admits she was pretty drunk, so…" He shrugged. "And then Hutchinson sees her at two o'clock, walking with a man she took into her flat. Virtually the same description as Madeline Cox: short, dark hair, hat and dark overcoat. Hutchinson goes home around 3am, and as far as he knows, the guy's still in number 13 with her when he leaves."

"Then?"

John sighed. "Madeline Cox was back around three, and says Kelly's flat was dark and quiet when she got in. Around four o'clock, three residents in the surrounding flats are woken up by someone screaming. And every single one of them rolled over and went back to sleep."

"The Genovese effect," Lestrade said, disgusted. On hearing this part of the evidence earlier in the day, he'd come the closest to losing his temper that he'd been for the entire case. "The more people hear something, the less likely they are to actually get up and investigate, 'cause they think someone else will do that…" On the table, his mobile phone bleeped, and he hastened to pick it up.

"Looks like nobody did investigate," John said, going back to his notes. "Nothing much happened after that, though Madeline Cox says she heard someone leaving one of the flats about quarter past six. She says she doesn't know which flat, though, because the acoustics in the building are dodgy and she didn't hear the door shut… Greg?"

Lestrade was staring at his phone screen in disbelief.

"What is it?" Sherlock demanded, going over to see. "What's wrong? Not another murder?"

Lestrade held his phone out to Sherlock. "No, nothing like that," he said. "The hair that was found in the package at my place? They've just lab tested it. It's _not_ Liz Stride's."

Sherlock sucked in a breath through his teeth. "But it's definitely female?"

"They can't say yet—only had a look under a microscope so far and seen it doesn't match any of the victims, nor any samples we have on file. DNA testing will take at least a week, even if they fast-track it."

"Brilliant," John muttered. "He's killed six people in five days. What's he going to do to the next woman?"

"Nothing," Sherlock said, giving the phone back to Lestrade. "Because you haven't been listening, and there won't be any 'next woman'."


	27. The Heart Out of You

_**A/N:** Behold! Chapter 27, earlier than expected. While we're coming toward the end of this adventure, there are a few more twists, turns, elaborations and chapters left. So don't hit me or ragequit the fic just yet… please._

 _As always, details relevant to the crime, victims, witnesses and suspects are as accurate as possible in a 21st century story. Reviews, as always, deeply cherished xx_

* * *

Joe Barnett turned out to be an unprepossessing, dark-haired young man of about thirty, shorter than Lestrade had expected. He had an odd bearing of carrying his shoulders too high, as if he was permanently cold. He took the seat Lestrade indicated, but did not take his coat off. His eyes were bleary, but dry.

"This is Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson," Lestrade said, with a sort of wave toward the fireplace where Sherlock stood, silent and alert, watching Barnett's every move. John had taken up residence in a green vinyl armchair angled toward the hearth and did not get up.

"Um. Hi," Joe said, almost sheepishly.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Lestrade continued in a perfunctory kind of way. "I know you've only just heard and probably want some time to process, but it's really important we get as much information as soon as possible, so we can find the person who did this."

"It's okay." Joe dropped into a chair and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

"Thanks. Do you want a drink or something?"

Barnett shook his head.

"The first thing I need to ask is, where were you between two o'clock and six o'clock this morning?"

"Where was I? At home," Barnett said immediately.

"Home…?"

"Home…? I mean, I was at Buller's Boarding House at New Street." But Barnett swallowed, gaze darting between Lestrade and Sherlock.

"And earlier in the night…?" Lestrade prompted him.

Barnett dropped his face into his hands and took a breath. "Earlier in the night? Okay. The thing is, me and Mary, we were broken up, right, but we were still friends, and I'd come by nearly every day—"

"You were here," Lestrade said. "With Mary. What time?"

"What time? Between seven-fifteen and, say, eight," he said, wiping sweat off his temples with the back of one hand. "Nothing much happened."

"Really?" Lestrade sounded skeptical. "I can think of something you might've been up to for most of those forty-five minutes you were here."

Barnett looked down at his hands, sheepish. "Okay," he said, then cleared his throat twice to try to overcome his emotion. "I came here, she let me in and we had sex. Happy?"

"No," Lestrade said. "Because she's _dead_ , Mr. Barnett."

"Barnett," Sherlock interjected. "When you saw Mary yesterday, what was she wearing?"

"What was she wearing? A red jumper and a purple jacket," he said. "Blue jeans. Boots, I think. Why?"

"No matter. Now tell me what happened after you left here."

"Left here about eight, like I said… I went to the Ten Bells with a mate and had a few pints."

"Which mate?" Lestrade asked.

"Which mate? Stuart Nicholls. Staying at Buller's with me. We rolled back home about a quarter to midnight, played some cards and went to bed about half-past."

"And slept the whole night?"

Barnett nodded, and Lestrade inwardly groaned. Few things were as annoying, or as authentic, as a suspect who was doing what most people were doing in the middle of the night: sleeping.

"Okay," he said. "So I want to ask you, do _you_ have any idea who might have done this to Mary? Was someone new hanging around recently, anyone she mentioned acting weirdly, anyone she was afraid of?"

Barnett gave a bitter sort of smile. "Anyone she was afraid of? She wasn't afraid of anything, Mr. Lestrade. Not even after all these murders started happening."

"You were concerned for her safety, then?" Sherlock asked.

"Concerned for her safety? 'Course I was."

"Though you split up before the murders started?"

"Before the murders started?" He shrugged. "Yeah. Christmas Night. But I still cared about her and everything," he said, sounding strangely argumentative about a point nobody had made. "Didn't want her letting some psycho into the flat and having it…"

He coughed hard into his hand, and Lestrade used the junction to exchange a significant look with Sherlock. This did not escape Barnett's attention, but before he could open his mouth, John spoke up.

"Joe," he said. "Is it okay if I call you Joe…?"

Barnett nodded.

"Joe, Sherlock and Lestrade are looking at each other like that because they've just noticed the way you always repeat a question before you answer it."

Barnett flushed scarlet. "I… yes, well, but I, but…"

"No, I'm not criticising you," John went on. "It's fine. Just trying to help you out with this, because to some people it might sound like you're trying to buy time to think out your answers. It sounds to me, though, like something called—"

"Mitigated echolalia," Sherlock finished for him, as if he couldn't resist.

"Yeah, that. Thanks for your help, Sherlock." John shot him an exasperated glance and turned back to Barnett. "Have you ever had a serious head injury, Joe? Maybe when you were a kid?"

Barnett glanced at Lestrade. "When I was a kid?" he asked before he could help himself, and they all saw the wave of panic wash over his face when he realised he couldn't control what was coming out of his mouth. "No, it was at work. August of last year."

"Where's 'work'?"

"Where's work?" He looked down at his hands. "Billingsgate Fish Market."

"Ah." Sherlock suddenly perked up. "So you work in retail?"

"In retail?" Barnett shrugged. "A bit. Skinning and boning, mostly. They bring the produce in these big refrigerated trucks, like, and part of my job was to offload them. I was doing it last August when the hatch on one of the refrigerators… we prop them up with those hooks on the end of a stick, you know… it fell down when I was bending over it."

"Jesus." John winced, all sympathy. "I bet that hurt like hell."

Barnett shook his head. "It didn't really, not at the time. 'Cause I was knocked clean out, or so the boys were telling me later. Had to go to the hospital. Eight stitches." He indicated a spot on the back of his head. "They kept me in for two days."

"And they don't do that for fun, I can tell you," John said, trying for playful, but with a little note of bitterness underneath it.

"No." Barnett glanced at Lestrade again. "It was after that," he said, "that they fired me."

"Why?"

"Why?" Barnett glanced toward the window and swallowed, but further elaboration did not seem forthcoming.

"Mr. Barnett," Lestrade said severely. "If you don't answer the question, I'm firstly going to ask your boss anyhow, and secondly going to ask a few more awkward questions you won't like."

Barnett licked his lips; an odd, cat-like movement. "I was late a lot," he explained. "Couldn't concentrate. Boss said he couldn't pay me to stand around and daydream when there were plenty of people who'd kill for work."

"And this being late," John said, "and not being able to concentrate. That was after the accident?"

"After the accident? Uh, yes. I came back from leave on the fourth of September. November third was my last day on the books."

"I see," Sherlock said. "And it was at that point when Mary decided to go back onto the streets to support the two of you?"

Barnett looked confused. "Onto the streets? No, Mr. Holmes. Mary didn't work, but she wasn't a… one of _those_ women."

"The other five victims of the murderous psychopath who killed your girlfriend were 'one of those women'," Lestrade said. "And I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know when I say that Mary's been hauled in four times in the last three years for soliciting."

Barnett, sulky, glanced toward the fire. "Yeah, I knew she used to do that," he muttered. "But when we moved in together, she stopped all that. I was supporting us. None of that dirty stuff anymore."

"But you haven't been supporting her recently," Sherlock pointed out. "Because first you lost your job in November, which dried up your income, and then the pair of you broke up on Christmas night and you moved out."

Joe shrugged again. "Things didn't work out," he said. "But I… we were still friends. I gave her money, helped her out a bit so she didn't have to go out on the streets, 'specially after this psycho started killing people."

"That was nice of you," John said. "When you weren't working."

"Joe," Lestrade broke in, feeling it was high time he took control of this interview, though he was watching Sherlock's cues. "When we were in the downstairs flat, we noticed there was a broken window next to the door. Can you tell us which one of you broke it?"

Barnett looked taken aback, and before he could formulate a plausible denial, blurted out, "Which one of us broke it? I… I think it was me. I can't really remember."

"But you did it during a row," Lestrade said, pressing his advantage.

"Yeah," he said wretchedly. "We were… look, it was the one we had on Christmas night. We were both pretty pissed."

"What was it all about?"

"What was it about? I offered to pay to have it fixed," Barnett went on. "She said no, but. Said she'd lost the key and in the meantime, it was handy to get in and out of the flat."

"What do you mean?" Sherlock asked.

"What do I mean? I wasn't joking when I said we were still friends, Mr. Holmes," he said. "I've been around a few times in the last couple of weeks… just friendly visits," he insisted, turning to John as if he was the one he had to convince of this. "She'd let us in and out of the flat by putting her arm through the hole in the window and turning the deadbolt, you know?"

"Sounds dangerous," John remarked. "For her arm and the contents of her flat."

"What contents?" Joe gave a bitter little laugh. "She had nothing to steal, Dr. Watson."

Sherlock got up. "Lestrade," he said, "John, I need to speak to both of you downstairs. Detective Constable Cowley can keep an eye on Mr. Barnett for a few minutes."

* * *

Mary Kelly's body had been covered by a sheet, but aside from that nothing in the room had changed except the fire, which had died completely. The contents had been shifted, as Anderson had said, and taken back to police headquarters for forensic testing, but the acrid smell had got into the floorboards, the curtains, the bloodstained, stinking mattress Mary Kelly's remains still lay on.

"It's Barnett," Sherlock said, barely waiting to close the battered door behind them. "Your killer is Joe Barnett, Lestrade. Arrest him before he leaves and we'll work on the details of our case in the next twenty-four hours. If he leaves the scene, he'll go to ground and more than likely commit suicide— "

"Whoa." Lestrade held up one hand to stop him. "Sherlock, come on, play fair here. You said it's never the woman's partner—"

"Yes, I know what I _said_. There are a small amount of cases where a murder spree leads to a domestic murder, and vice-versa, and this is one of them. Barnett matches everything. He meets the physical description of our dark sailor perfectly. He's left-handed, and his profession makes him handy with a knife, but no matter; that could stand for half the men in the East End." He pointed. "Bottles. Door. Washing basket. Bed."

"Yeah, you're going to have to explain that a bit—"

"The killer wrote that he was keeping Polly Nichols's blood in a ginger beer bottle. There are three of them on the mantelpiece, and a fourth has gone missing so recently that the dust ring it left is still visible. More circumstantial evidence, so let's move on to the issue of the door: it was locked when the police got here, and nobody has found the key. Perhaps Barnett has it, and perhaps he doesn't; without it, the only way for a person entering or leaving the flat to lock the door was to reach through the broken window and tweak the lock with one hand."

"Anyone she'd had over since the window got broken could have seen her do that," Lestrade pointed out.

"Yes, but _why would they do it?_ Why would the killer lock the door after himself when he left, when he was so desperate for us to find the other victims that he left them lying in public?"

"Dunno," John ventured. "Why?"

"There was no 'why'. Barnett did it purely out of force of habit. Even when you've got a key, the easiest way to lock a dead-bolted door is to turn the bolt and then shut the door behind you."

"So, the washing basket and the bed…?"

"Look at her." Sherlock gestured to the still, white-sheeted form on the bed. "She was attacked while she was sleeping. Madeline Cox's testimony was that the flat was silent and dark when she came home at 3am, which bears that out. What sort of a prostitute, operating without a pimp, would invite a client into her own home, then be stupid enough to fall asleep while he was still with her? That's an invitation for robbery at best. But she _would_ invite her ex to the home they shared. She'd feel safe enough to fall asleep next to him after sex. And _he'd_ feel safe staying here for hours dismembering her, because he knows nobody else lives here. Nobody else was due to arrive until well into the morning, which gave him plenty of time to clean up and leave." He pointed. "Besides, even if she did have a momentary lapse in judgement and fall asleep with a client in her room, or was drugged to do so, the clothes she was wearing are over here in the washing basket. Blue jeans, red jumper. Therefore, we know she didn't take them off for a sexual assignation with a client, because if that were the case she'd put them aside and likely put them back on after. She took them off in the usual way and put them in her washing basket, because she was _going to bed."_

"Okay," Lestrade said, determined to be reasonable. "All right, case for Barnett being Mary Kelly's killer is looking more and more likely. But why would he kill the others?"

"Because he's a psychopath and he hates prostitutes—you could hear it in his tone when he referred to the other victims," he said. "It disgusted him when the woman he loved went back on the streets, and he took that hate out on the only people he could. Did you notice? When we asked what the row at Christmas was about, he repeated the question—his neurological condition compelled him to—but didn't actually answer it. At an excellent guess, they broke up because he discovered Mary had gone back to prostitution as a way of paying the rent while he was out of work. A noble gesture, considering she could hardly have enjoyed it, but to Barnett, she became just another worthless whore. I doubt he even saw her as human after that."

"He exploded."

"Call it a controlled demolition. He moved out, but was careful to make amends for the temper tantrum and establish a relationship as the amicable ex."

"With benefits," John muttered.

"Yes. Meanwhile, he nursed what he felt was his grievance, and killed five other women first, both to vent his lust and loathing on sex workers and to try to scare Mary off the streets. When even _that_ failed to deter her, he got himself invited over for post-relationship sex and let her fall asleep before attacking her. Then he burned the clothes he was wearing, dressed in a change of his own clothes which he himself had brought over, and left via the door at around quarter past six. Several people would have heard or saw him. Likely none of them will remember it, because for a year they've seen Joe Barnett leave that flat every day before dawn to go to work. One day is very like another when nothing important happens."

Lestrade let out a breath. "Sherlock," he said, "You're accusing Barnett of murdering six women, including the one he was practically married to. You'd better be right about this."

"Oh, do as you like, Inspector." Sherlock shrugged. "If, at any point in the past twelve years, you've decided I'm to be trusted, you'll arrest Joseph Barnett and charge him with the murders of Martha Tabram, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly." He nodded toward the fire. "The last of your proof," he said, "was in there, though I don't imagine there's much of it left."

"And what's that?"

"Her heart," Sherlock said. "Barnett threw it in there and burned it. Only he would have burned her heart, Lestrade. The man who loved her—or thought he did."

* * *

It was another half an hour before Sherlock and John, having witnessed Joe Barnett's arrest and established there was nothing more to be done at the crime scene, decided to leave it. Neither of them had a car, so they decided to walk up toward the train station, grabbing coffee on the way. Lestrade was not so lucky. The case against Barnett was so circumstantial that it was only the prospect of Barnett absconding or killing himself that had prompted Lestrade to arrest him in the first place. It looked likely that he'd be at the filthy, gore-spattered flat for days, on and off, while further collecting evidence to strengthen his case.

"So that was it?" John asked Sherlock as they left the court and started walking up Dorset Street. "It was Barnett the whole time?"

"You and Lestrade are so disappointed by that," Sherlock said. "Why?"

John shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "He's just so…"

"For God's sake," Sherlock groaned. "Serial killers look like everyone else. How successful do you think they'd be at luring their victims if they had a crazy look in their eye or an inverted cross tattooed on their forehead?"

"We caught the Bermondsey Beheader last year," John reminded him, "and he _did_ have an inverted cross tattooed on his forehead."

"He was the exception that proved the point," Sherlock protested.

"Okay." Then, after a pause, John ventured, "So… how was America?"

"Long, dull and arduous." Sherlock held one hand out to hail a cab. "On that note, I'm going back to Baker Street. I need a shower."

"You get that one. I'm off to the hospital." John glanced at his watch. "I'll catch up with you later, okay?"

* * *

Sherlock was a lot more weary than he was willing to admit, even to himself. After returning to 221b and satisfying himself that nobody had broken in and the place was still secure, he flopped down onto his bed and was asleep before he could even think to brush his teeth and put some pyjamas on. He woke again just after five to find the flat cold and dark, and something preying on his mind. Something he'd forgotten to see to…

Ah, there it was. The bloody _cat._ Smudge had been removed to Mycroft's apartment, along with the Watson's two cats, three goldfish, and half their nursery, if John was to be believed. Sherlock didn't particularly like cats and usually ignored Toby and Casper, but Smudge was his own, something of Mrs Hudson's he felt duty-bound to keep alive, since he hadn't managed to do that for his landlady herself. He'd even touched on the subject once or twice in counselling: _The medical evidence was clear. There was nothing I could have done even if I'd been there when it happened. I have to accept that. I do not have to like it._

He also had to accept that it was high time he fetched the cat and set the flat to some semblance of normality. After finally having a shower and changing his clothes, he checked the messages on his phone, half expecting something from Christabel about the funeral. No such luck. There was, however, one from Lestrade:

 _Fingerprint in the box matches Barnett's. In Eddowes's blood. Charged with the murder of Eddowes. Remanded w/o bail while we get the other murders sorted. Call me tonight._

 _\- Today 3:57pm_

Well, that was no surprise, he thought as he put the phone in his pocket without answering.

And now. Yes. The cat.

* * *

It was after six o'clock before he arrived at Mycroft's Chelsea Harbour apartment, now temporarily home to a man, two women, a toddler, three cats and three goldfish, assuming another one hadn't fallen victim to Charlie's attempts to pet it. As usual, he poked at the security intercom button to be allowed up, assuming John would buzz him in without even bothering to ask what he was doing there. To his surprise, Harry answered with, "Sherlock? Is John with you?"

"No," he said. "Should he be?"

"Wait there. I'm coming down."

Sherlock waited, puzzled, for several minutes until the doors parted and Harry appeared. She was carrying Charlie on one hip. "Have you heard from John today?" she demanded.

Sherlock looked blankly at her. "I was with him all morning," he said. "A woman was murdered off Dorset Street. We only left there at half-past one—"

"That fucking _bastard,"_ Harry seethed. "I'm going to kill him. Managed to go to a crime scene!"

"I went to Baker Street to sleep," Sherlock faltered. "He said he had to go see the twins, but I assumed he'd be back by now..."

Even under the circumstances, he heard himself and winced. Now that they were born and had names, John absolutely hated people referring to _the twins,_ though there had been times when he'd been too tired to be bothered with _Sophie and Louise_ and done it himself.

"He didn't say anything…?" Harry sounded incredulous.

"Say anything about w _hat?"_

"John has decided that he's no longer a member of this family."

Sherlock gave an involuntary gasp, like he'd taken a fist to the gut, and stood looking at Harry in silent, stark disbelief. "Harry," he finally managed to say. "Are you trying to tell me that John's walked out on Molly?"

She nodded. "I had a little talk with him yesterday about the shitty way he's been behaving and the massive lies he's been telling people. Wouldn't talk about it with me, but he left the flat while I was downstairs with Molly and Charlie, took some clothes with him and didn't come home last night. Left me a note, though."

"A note? Show me."

With a put-upon sigh, Harry handed Charlie over to Sherlock and dipped into her jeans pocket, producing a piece of lined, folded notepaper. Sherlock took it in his free hand and flicked it open. Blue ballpoint pen. Undoubtedly John's handwriting, though written in haste and possibly in strong emotion, judging from the aggressive downward strokes of the pen.

"Has Molly seen this?" he asked her.

Harry shook her head. "It was addressed to me, wasn't it."

* * *

 _Harry,_

 _I need to be by myself for a few days. Look after Molly and Charlie for me. Molly's got full access to the cheque and savings accounts and I've left you the car. I'll be with Sophie and Louise as much as I can_

 _John_

* * *

"What did you tell Molly?" Sherlock asked her, folding the letter grimly and realising, too late, something that had been bothering him about John that morning. More specifically, something that had been bothering him about John's clothes: creases from where they'd been folded.

"As little as possible," Harry said. "That John had gone off in a tizz to be on his own for a few days. She's taking it bloody well, I'll say that much, but still waters run deep with that one, so I can't tell whether she's really okay or seconds away from a breakdown. Seems convinced he's coming back, though."

"Of course she is," Sherlock said. "And so would you be, if you were really paying attention to this letter."

"… Come again…?"

"Harry, in my career I've been asked to look for hundreds of missing persons. In many of those cases, they leave a note. There are distinct differences between the note of a man who is intending to come back and one who isn't. But that's not important. This is: _Why_ do you think John would have done this?"

"Because he's a little fuckweasel, that's why."

Sherlock wondered if anything specific was meant by 'fuckweasel', but he wasn't wondering for long.

"You're not the only person in the world who finds things out," Harry went on, brushing her hair out of her eyes with two fingers. "My fucking brother can't cope without sex for longer than about five minutes, apparently. He's cheating on her."

"Don't be absurd," Sherlock said, disgusted. "John would never—"

"I said what I said and I'm sticking with it, Sherlock," she said. "You've known John for six years? Good for you, but I've known him for more than four decades. I've stood by while he fucked up relationship after relationship with his dicking around."

Since Sherlock couldn't deny this, he decided not to respond to it. "Even if he _did_ suddenly decide to cheat on Molly," he went on feverishly, "he wouldn't _leave_ her, still recovering from surgery and with three small children, and then be so inconsistent as to ask you to look after her—"

"I have proof, Sherlock. GPS coordinates. Witness testimony. No jury would acquit. He's been doing it for a while, and he's not even smart enough to hide it from _me._ I mean, I'm not exactly _you_ , so God knows what else he's been up to—"

"You need to tell me everything you know," Sherlock said. "Names. Dates. Times. Addresses. I'm going to find him, tonight, but I'm going armed with information. Do you know who it is?"

"Yeah, I do. A woman he went to Kings with. Her name's Trish Crew."


	28. De Profundis

An hour later, Sherlock stood in the lobby of the Premier London Hotel on York Road, thumbing out a text.

 _Which room? Don't make me get Lestrade involved - S_

 _\- Today 7:18pm_

 **~o0o~**

 _17_

 _\- Today 7:20pm_

Room seventeen was on the ground floor, and the door was unlocked, as if John had expected him. He found him sitting on the bed. He was dressed, minus his shoes, but the bed was unmade and his hair ruffled, as if he'd just woken up.

The two men looked at each other. There was no sound except for the whirr of an underwhelming little fan heater on the wall that was doing nothing to warm the room.

"Go on," John said listlessly as Sherlock shut the door behind him. "You're dying to tell me how you found me."

"Hardly a difficult deduction," Sherlock said, taking his coat and scarf off and draping them over the back of a chair. "I went to Chelsea Harbour, and Harry told me you'd gone. You wouldn't go to Greg, Mike or Bill, all of whom would ask you to explain yourself. You don't have any other friends you're on a close enough basis with to stay overnight at their house, so you spent last night at a hotel. Your preference is for three-star accommodation, which appeals to your sense of economy without scrimping on essentials. And you'd choose one as close to the Evelina Children's Hospital as possible so you could stay near Sophie and Louise, because you left the car for Harry."

"Yeah." John passed one hand over his jaw. "I'm pretty predictable."

"Actually," Sherlock confessed, "I went to the hospital first. They said I'd just missed you, so."

"So." John got up and went into the ensuite bathroom, shutting the door gently behind him. Sherlock looked around: coffee. He was going to need coffee to oil these social hinges. There was a tiny kitchenette in one corner, consisting of not much more than a bar fridge, a kettle and a sink, and Sherlock went over and filled the kettle. He was pouring two cups of instant coffee when he heard the sound of a running tap in the bathroom, the squeak of cheap plumbing, and John opened the door again.

"Coffee?" Sherlock offered.

"Mmm." John sat back down on the mattress, staring blankly into space until Sherlock passed him a full cup and sat down on the only chair in the room with his own.

"What happened with your dad?" John asked him.

"I'm still trying to decide that myself."

" _Sherlock._ Come on, I'm talking to you."

Sherlock appeared to spend some time formulating a response to this. "We went in with Christabel and… and Martine to the intensive care unit to see him," he said, angry with himself that he'd fumbled over his stepmother's name. "He wasn't in a state to talk."

"Unconscious?"

"Not the second time, when the hospital called us in. They do that, you know. There are distinct signs when a person is dying—"

"Sherlock, I'm a doctor."

"Yes, well." Sherlock pulled one foot up onto the seat of his chair and started fussing with his shoe. "Mycroft and I went in. He opened his eyes, looked at me, and asked me who I was. I said, 'I'm Sherlock, I'm your son', and he said, 'Well, you're a handsome devil, aren't you?'"

"So… what did you say?"

Sherlock tweaked at his shoelaces. "Nothing. Then he shut his eyes and died."

"Oh, Sherlock," John said. "All that time, and that's what you got. Jesus. I'm sorry."

"I'm sure I'll be able to move on." Sherlock was still fiddling with his shoelace and did not look up, even as he asked, "Do you regret not… making amends with your father before he died?"

John considered this. "No," he said. "Not really. I mean, it would have been nice, but I guess I'm just sorry he wasn't a person I wanted to make amends with before he died."

"Perhaps he was. Perhaps he'd changed, and you didn't know."

"When Harry and I went to clean the place out, we found fourteen bottles of hard liquor in the house, most of them empty. So I doubt it."

Both of them fell silent, listening to the dim whir of the air conditioning vent above them. Finally, John shifted. "Listen," he said. "There's something I need to tell you—"

"I know, John."

John raised one eyebrow. "You know?" he repeated. "I very much doubt it. But go on. What do you think you know?"

"Patricia Crew."

John froze.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock said, glancing away. "Always I've supported you, John. But this… I'm sorry. I can't support you in this—"

"I need you to," John said.

"… Sorry, what?"

"I _need_ you to support me, Sherlock. And I need you to listen to me for a bit."

Something jackhammered in Sherlock's throat, though he could not have explained why. "I'm listening," he said.

But John was far away in thought, gaze falling on a random spot just beyond the fan heater on the floor, and did not respond for a minute or two. "How much do you know about me and Trish?"

Sherlock cleared his throat. "I know you have an extensive sexual history with Dr. Crew. I know you've texted and called her mobile phone on a number of occasions in the last two weeks, sometimes as late as midnight; that you've claimed to have gone places that have never heard of you, and that you've been seen going to and from Crew's house in Crouch End."

John nodded. "You're right," he said. "I did sleep with Trish—seventeen years ago. I suppose you and Mycroft have done your homework on her, too."

"Forty-four, British born, born in Dunstable and studied at King's College with you. She's in a committed long-term relationship, though not legally married, and has a thirteen-year-old daughter named Freya. She's a neurologist, and Sadie Holland is, or was, one of her patients. I assume you got reacquainted when you consulted her during the _Marie Celeste_ case."

John nodded. "So if you know about Freya, I'm assuming you know all about Trish's partner. Tell me about him, Sherlock. There's one thing. One _big thing_ I think you've missed."

Sherlock shut his eyes, thinking. Most of his information on Dr. Patricia Crew, M.D., had been collected in a flurry of texts between himself and Mycroft during the taxi ride over; the emphasis had been on her shared past with John, not her family life. "Her partner is a Dr. David Horrocks, forty-six," he said. "Works at…"

He stopped.

"Go on."

"He's a gastroenterologist," Sherlock said hollowly. "At St. Thomas's Hospital."

"Right. Now I've sat here and said nothing while you've accused me of cheating on my sick wife and betraying my kids, so now shut up and let me talk for a bit," John said.

Sherlock obediently looked down at the cup in his hands and did not venture another word, but John was looking out the window at nothing in particular and took a long time to begin.

"I started having all these… symptoms just before Christmas," he finally said. "Exhausted. Nauseous. That kind of thing…"

A sudden memory crashed into Sherlock's focus. John, sitting by himself on the sea wall in Mousehole after saving Sadie Holland's life. _CPR's tiring._

"At first everything was easy to ignore or explain away," John was saying. "We had a lot going on even before the twins were born, and anyway, my immune system's been crap ever since Moran shot me, so I wasn't worried. I even wrote the heartburn off as stress and middle age." He glanced at his coffee, as if contemplating taking a sip, then back at the window. "And then, when I was in Leeds after Sophie and Louise were born, it… got a lot worse."

Pieces of the puzzle that Sherlock had discounted as irrelevant suddenly became all too relevant. _Not eating._ _Losing weight. Sleeping during the day. I saw it. I saw everything. I put it down to stress._ "John, for God's sake, why didn't you—"

"Seeing a doctor and getting tested isn't like it is on telly," John went on. "It can take weeks—months—to get an appointment with a specialist. Trish isn't the only one I know from King's—David was a close mate for years, until we just sort of drifted apart after we got our placements. He offered to see me as soon as possible and get me tested early. I get the results back tomorrow."

"John," Sherlock said. "I realise I'm not a doctor. And that you are. I'm not trying to dismiss your concerns, but I do believe you may be worrying about nothing. It's _very_ common for—"

"My mother died of cancer, Sherlock. You know that. What you mightn't know is both my grandfathers did, too. I've been waiting for this most of my life... I just thought I'd get a little more time."

Silence.

"It's gastric cancer, Sherlock. I have cancer."

"You can't know that for certain yet," Sherlock protested feverishly. "Cancer mimics a number of symptoms of more benign—"

"With a bit of luck, they'll have caught it early enough to be able to get it. Surgery and chemo."

"What does David think?"

John shrugged, as if the opinion of his doctor was somehow irrelevant. "Hedging his bets," he said. "All doctors do. You don't want to tell someone you think they've got cancer, give them a heart attack, then have to take it back when it turns out to be something else."

"So it could be something else."

"Statistically, yes, it _could_ be something else."

"This morning," Sherlock said. "When I came to Miller's Court... I thought you were rattled after seeing the crime scene. You weren't rattled. You were ill."

"Yeah, this morning… wasn't a great morning for it."

"How much does Molly know about this?"

"Nothing," he said immediately. "Unless you and Harry have told her I'm cheating on her. She knows I'm run down and that I've been in an awful mood for weeks, but if she suspects anything else, she's not saying."

"She told me you were upset," Sherlock said. "But not that she thought you were ill. For God's sake, John. I'm your best friend, and Molly's your _wife-"_

"Which is why I couldn't tell either of you about the tests. You needed me. You both needed me."

"You needed us, John."

"No. I managed without you."

"As evidenced by the fact that we're having this conversation in a hotel room, because your sister went nosing around too close to the truth and you panicked and fled, leaving behind your wife and children. Shut up and tell me more about these tests."

John swallowed. "Trish and I've been keeping in touch through email since the Holland case, and Molly knows that. She and Trish have never met each other, but I've made no secrets about being married, and Trish and David know about what happened when Sophie and Louise were born. Last Saturday I had to have an upper endoscopy done at the hospital… calm down, it was a fifteen minute procedure. But I needed to be sedated for it and I wasn't allowed to drive after for a few hours. Trish took me in and got me back to their house until I could go home. Then after, she and David have been asking me how I am, keeping me sane. We've had coffee a few times. That's it. That's all."

Sherlock put his tea down and covered his mouth with his hands in contemplative silence. "I owe you an apology," he said. "I'm just trying to think how best to express it."

"That'll do. The last thing I need right now is an argument with you."

"No. I know sentiment embarrasses you, but I need to say this, John: If you have cancer—which you don't—please understand that there is nothing I won't do to get you well again-"

"Don't." John covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath. "Don't say things you can't make good on, Sherlock. There are some killers even you can't catch. I'm about to go into hell."

"Then I'm coming in with you and bringing you out again."

John laughed bitterly. "No you're not," he said. "Not this time."

"You could have told me. You _should_ have told me."

"Why?"

" _Because_. Would you expect me to tell you if _I'd_ been going through testing for cancer?"

"Sherlock, you just lost your father."

"No. I lost my father when I was four," Sherlock said. "Anyhow, I got news he was ill _after_ you got news that you were, so your argument is specious. You should have come to me."

"Yeah, well," John said. "Sometimes you don't want to speak something into existence. When I get the test results, you'll be the first person I tell."

"The first…?"

"Yeah, the first. How am I supposed to tell Molly I've got cancer?" John coughed into his fist. "You'll look after her, right? The kids?"

"John, for God's sake, of course I will—"

"Because they won't remember—"

"All right, no. Shut up. You're writing your obituary and you haven't even got a diagnosis yet. I realise the wait itself feels like it's killing you, but be calm and _wait_. What time do you expect you'll know?"

"They want me back at the hospital at nine tomorrow morning."

Sherlock checked his watch. "Fourteen hours, give or take." He stood up and went to a little desk bolted to the wall, opening a drawer and rummaging around in it. Along with a phone book, some fliers for local services and a Gideons Bible, he found what he expected: a deck of cards. "Do you prefer cribbage or pinochle?" he asked brightly, producing them.

"Sorry, what?"

Sherlock, expertly shuffling the deck, shrugged. "Well, let's admit it," he said. "I'm not leaving, and neither of us are going to get any sleep tonight. Better this than you walking the floor worrying. Come on. Let's play."

"For fourteen hours?"

"Why not?"

"You count cards."

"I won't this time. Sit down. Drink your coffee. And for God's sake, send your wife a text and let her know you're all right."

John muttered something like _I already have,_ but he picked up his phone from where it rested on the bedside table and thumbed out a message. Then he reached across for the coffee Sherlock had made him and took a sip, wincing. "So it was definitely Barnett?" he asked.

"Hmm? Oh. He hasn't confessed, but it was definitely Barnett," Sherlock said, dealing cards at a rate of knots, though he'd forgotten to inform John what game they were playing yet. "The fingerprint on the inside of the box sent to Lestrade matches. In Eddowes's blood. Open and shut."

"What about the hair? The one that didn't match Liz Stride?"

"Statistically insignificant," Sherlock said. "It could have come from anywhere."

"Maybe it belonged to an accomplice."

"There was no accomplice. The women were all killed by Barnett."

"People s _aw_ an accomplice, Sherlock. Israel Schwartz was chased down by him. And if Constable Barrett saw Joe Barnett waiting in front of George Yard Buildings, and he said he was waiting for a mate who'd gone with a girl, he probably was."

Sherlock stopped, a two of diamonds suspended in mid-air between two fingers.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes," he muttered, apparently to himself. "It was the _friend_ who went with a girl…" He got up and fetched his phone, scrolling through the address book until he reached Lestrade's number. There was a tense silence as the line rang three times before he answered.

"Lestrade, I need you to find George Hutchinson's witness statement and read it out for me. He said he saw a man with Mary Kelly before she was murdered. Describe him to me."

"Hang on, gimme a second." Sherlock heard the unmistakable sound of Lestrade rummaging through his paperwork, and then there was a pause as he read. "Okay," he said. "He was standing on the corner of Commercial and Dorset when he saw them standing under a streetlight outside the Queen's Head. The man put his hand on Kelly's shoulder and said something to her Hutchinson couldn't hear. She said, 'all right', and Hutchinson then heard him say 'You will be all right for what I have told you.' Local accent, voice not particularly deep, and he'd know it again. He had a pale complexion, stubble, dark hair, dark eyes, bushy eyebrows. Soft, dark hat of some kind pulled over his eyes, a long dark coat trimmed in Astrakhan. Dark jumper over a white-collared shirt. Light-coloured boots, dark coloured gloves held in his left hand, small package in his right. Gold Seiko watch with a black face on his left wrist. Aged thirty-five or so, and 5'6'' or 5'7'' tall.'"

"And you've seen Hutchinson?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because I haven't. Describe him to me."

"Early thirties, 5'10'' or so, white, collar-length blond hair, skin that looks like he's seen a bit of sun in his day. Don't ask me the colour of his eyes or what his teeth are like, I couldn't tell you."

"Listen to me," Sherlock said. "You need to find George Hutchinson immediately. Don't ask questions. Just call me back when you've found him."

If Lestrade had been tempted to ask questions anyway, he had no opportunity to. Sherlock hung up on him.

"What's going on?" John asked as Sherlock gathered up his coat and scarf again.

"George Hutchinson," Sherlock said. "Social worker for the Whitechapel Mission. The man he described matched Joe Barnett closely enough, but there was something wrong with his description."

"What?"

"It was too detailed. He described the man's shoes and watch. Nobody looks at another person's shoes in that sort of detail unless they have a very good reason. And how could he have noticed the plating on a man's watch from fifty yards away, at night, lit only by a streetlight and whatever light was coming out a pub window?"

"Oh, what, you're saying he was lying about being there?"

"No, he was there. And that's the other thing about his statement: he said Mary Kelly asked him for money and picked up a client at 2 a.m., but according to his own story he didn't leave her yard until an hour later."

"He was, what, watching them through the window or something?"

 _"He's the scout,_ John. That's why Annie Chapman and the other victims went with him, despite knowing there was a serial killer in their midst. He was someone they knew and trusted, a social worker from the mission. They had no idea he was luring them to a serial killer."

"Why would he—"

"Because he's a peeping tom, as you correctly observed, and a vicarious sadist. Barnett wanted to hurt women. Hutchinson wanted to watch."

"So who sent the letters, the roses…?"

"Hutchinson. Why would Barnett bother with such a thing? All he wanted to do was destroy the women he thought were responsible for a lifetime of misery."

"And play with their insides."

"Yes. That was the game between both men: fascination and contempt. Hutchinson had the fascination, and Barnett had the contempt."

"So why would Hutchinson want to send you those weird packages?"

"Lestrade will be able to tell us, once he does a bit of research into past cases. I have no memory of seeing him before, but as Mycroft was so kind to tell me, that's precisely the point. I have myself a fan, one who's very put out that I've not noticed his efforts before—efforts I think will run to assault and animal cruelty, if Melissa has it right…" He trailed off as his phone began to ring again, and whisked it up. "Where is he?" he demanded down the line.

"I just rang the Mission," Lestrade said. "You're not going to believe this."

"He hasn't run?"

"I hope not. It's his usual shift tonight, but he got a Shaun Dooley to cover him, because he's off on a date. With DC Susannah Cowley."

Sherlock sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Where?"

"Her place, from what Dooley said. He didn't know the address, but good thing I'm Cowley's boss and he doesn't need to. She lives in the basement flat at 213 Wade Street, Islington. Now will you tell me what the hell's going on?"

"Lestrade," Sherlock said. "Hutchinson is Joe Barnett's accomplice, and Cowley may be in danger. We need to apprehend him immediately. I'll meet you at the corner of Eldridge Avenue and West Street. Bring Donovan and the rest. Oh—and a tactical response unit, in case there's a hostage situation."

He hung up the phone and put it in his pocket. "Our card game may have to wait," he said over his shoulder, apologetic.

"I'll come with you," John said, getting up.

"No. You'll stay here and get some sleep. It's not—"

"Don't tell me I can't come because it's not safe. I'm about to demonstrate to you that I can defend myself," John said hotly, both hands curled.

"John, please. Be sensible—"

"I'm being sensible. I'm fine. You know I'm fine, because you're the greatest detective in the world, and even _you_ didn't notice there was anything wrong. But I might be in surgery tomorrow night. I might spend the next six months in chemo. I might…" He coughed into his hand. "Look, this might be my last case with you. Will you let it be my last case?"

Sherlock looked him over for a few seconds, weighing this up. "Can you keep up with me?" he asked.

"What the hell do you think I've been doing for _weeks?"_

"Come on, then. I assume you have the gun?"

"Wait," John said, stopping dead. "No."

"What? Why not?"

"Mycroft," he explained. "Mycroft took it off me, the day you left for America. I guess… he didn't want me having it around when I was…"

"Oh my God," Sherlock said, disgusted. "My best friend was a suicide risk waiting on the results of testing for cancer, and my big brother decided that was something I didn't need to know. He'll be hearing from me once this is all over. You can watch. I know you're always keen to see Mycroft on the back foot."

"Sherlock—"

"Look, never mind about the gun. There's nothing to suggest you'll need it, and we'll have to do without it. Let's go."


	29. Thicker Than Blood

"There's one thing I don't understand," John said once they were in the cab and on their way. He cast the driver a half-suspicious glance and dropped his voice.

"One thing? You really are coming along."

"No, but seriously. Why? Why would a nice, normal social worker like George Hutchinson turn out to be a demented killer?"

Sherlock gave him a frosty glance.

"Voyeur," he corrected himself. "Fine. Though if this goes to trial, he'll be tried the same as Barnett. Why would he turn out to be a demented voyeur? Does that even happen, outside of movies?"

"There are two types of people who go into humanitarian work, as you well know," Sherlock said. "Those who do so out of altruism—they genuinely want to change the world—and those who do so out of their most base motives."

Right, again, John thought. Approximately half of the soldiers he'd served with in Afghanistan did it because they wanted to help liberate the world. The other half held a collection of more base motives, from his own—chasing adventure—to the deplorable—some were downright racists who wanted an excuse to shoot brown people.

"Someone like Hutchinson doesn't become a pervert after being a social worker. They become a social worker because of their perversion. He works with the most vulnerable of people. People who are unable to physically defend themselves. People whose testimony is worthless, even if they survive—written off as drunks, junkies, mentally ill, pathological liars."

"I'd love to know what Pearly Poll thinks of him," John said.

"So would I. To the best of my knowledge she's never mentioned him, but I hardly think she's been in a state for it recently."

"You're saying Hutchinson did it for kicks," John said, "but Barnett was the one actually doing the killing?"

Sherlock nodded.

"So what's he doing with Susannah Cowley? He wouldn't be stupid enough to try to kill her tonight, surely, when we've got Barnett in custody."

Sherlock considered this. "I don't know," he said. "And I'm not prepared to guess."

"Why doesn't Barnett just out him as the accomplice, anyway? Put all the blame on him?"

"Because he's rather stupidly going for a not-guilty defence. You heard him. He's insisting that he was nowhere near the crime scene and knows nothing about it. They only way he can maintain that is to keep George Hutchinson out of it altogether. Rather clever of him… Hutchinson, not Barnett."

* * *

They got out of the cab a block away from where Sherlock had instructed Lestrade to meet him, walking the rest of the way. They found Lestrade there waiting for them on the kerb alone, though Sherlock knew there was a likelihood that half of Scotland Yard were hidden about the place, unobtrusive for now, and a firearms unit parked a few blocks away.

"Have you had any contact with Cowley?" Sherlock demanded without saying hello.

Lestrade shook his head. "Decided to wait for you," he said. "Did a bit of digging, though, and between me and Merivale and Donovan, we're almost sure this is the guy who's spent the last eight months doing horrible things to people's family pets all over the East End."

"… What? I never heard about this," Sherlock said.

"No, and that's exactly the point. No amount of that business was going to get your attention, and he must have felt pretty ripped off about that, considering you dropped everything to go to Birmingham to help out George Edalji two years ago."

George Edalji… Sherlock had, in all sincerity, nearly forgotten about the Edalji case. He supposed that by now George was out of prison. He wondered if he had anything to do now with Sarah and little Miriam, who would be nearly two years old. More than likely, the terms of his parole forbade it. "Well, of _course_ he didn't get my attention," he said. "Those crimes didn't even make the papers."

"Yes they did," John said.

"How would you know?"

"'Cause I actually _read_ newspapers, instead of glancing at the first two pages, saying 'boring', and using the rest for some weird experiment."

"It was my case, actually," Lestrade said, before this could become a squabble. "I've been looking for him, but I'll be the first to admit I should have been looking harder."

"You should have consulted me," Sherlock said.

"I _did_ consult you. Four times. Every single time you said 'boring, not interested.'"

"I did not."

"I've still got the texts somewhere, Sherlock."

Sherlock, ignoring this last point, pulled out his phone. "What's Cowley's number?" he asked.

Lestrade got his own phone out and read it out for him, and Sherlock, phone to his ear, wandered a little further down the street. Lestrade and John watched for a few seconds.

"Get any sleep today?" John asked.

Lestrade shrugged. "I've been worse," he said. "Why, how bad do I look?"

"Like you've been hit by a car."

"Oh, give it a rest, will you? Nagging officers about their health and safety isn't going to be your job until the middle of next month."

John offered a tired smile, and Lestrade might have been about to elaborate when they heard a click of boots on the footpath behind them and turned to see Sally Donovan.

"Donovan," Lestrade said, all business. "Get anything on what's going on in the house?"

She shook her head. "Makes it hard when you can barely see the basement windows," she said. "I did a rec in the laneway behind the house and left Dyer and Halloran there, in case he tries to bolt over the back wall. There's definitely a back door to the property, and the kitchen's located toward the rear, with the window looking out onto the yard. Smaller window that might be a utility room or a toilet, and another that could be anything, but if it's laid out anything like my place, probably a bedroom."

Lestrade glanced at his watch.

"I should have seen this coming," she said through gritted teeth, more to herself than to Lestrade or John.

"Really? Why?"

"When we were at the Good Samaritan the other night," she said. "Looking out for this guy. She asked me. She _asked me_ what the policy is for flirting on duty and that kind of thing."

"And what did you tell her?"

She gave Lestrade an ugly look. "I told her," she said, "exactly what I'd tell anyone else. You're not allowed to date anyone involved in an open case. She knew better…"

"She might be about to be murdered," John said. "So maybe we can talk about how stupid she is later?"

Donovan had opened her mouth to bite back when Sherlock returned. "Why does she keep hanging up on me?" he demanded.

"Probably because she's on a date, trying to get loverboy in a compromising position, and some random number she doesn't know keeps calling her," Lestrade said, rummaging around in his pocket again. "Maybe she thinks you're a telemarketer or something. Here, use my phone. If she doesn't answer one of my calls, she's either committing career suicide or Hutchinson's murdering her."

~o0o~

Sherlock was barely listening to the last of Lestrade's commentary, instead giving his attention to the purring line. After an anxious few seconds, the line clicked. "Hello?"

"Susannah," he said, arriving at her first name at the exquisitely last second. "It's Sherlock Holmes. Quickly—if anyone else has seen your caller ID, pretend I'm Lestrade. If not, pretend I'm a male relative who's called for a social chat."

"Hi, Dad," she said brightly. "How's Port Louis?"

"Excellent. Listen, I'm about to give you a set of instructions, and if you're the stuff murder detectives are made of, you will follow them exactly. I firstly need you to act completely naturally. Is that understood?"

"Yep," she said warmly.

"You're not in trouble, but I need you to confirm, is George Hutchinson in there with you? Don't make it too obvious—"

"Sure is," she said. "So the flight went okay then?"

Sherlock took a moment to admire Cowley's nerves. She'd just been told to act instantly on the information that she was having dinner with a serial killer, and her voice hadn't wavered. "Is there a lock on your bathroom door?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said jubilantly. Then, after a pause, "I know you were worried about your carry-on. What time did you touch down?"

"Okay. Susannah, we have good reason to believe Hutchinson is dangerous. We're on our way to get you, but if you want to stay safe you need to do everything I tell you. After we hang up, go back to Hutchinson and play along with whatever he's saying or doing. Wait six minutes, then excuse yourself to the bathroom. Barricade yourself in and don't come out until I come and get you. Is that clear?'

"Okay," she said. "It sounds like it. I bet Mum just loved it…"

"We'll need to wrap this up. Stay safe. Don't try to provoke him or do your own detective work. Do you understand?"

"Okay," she said again. "What time is it there…?"

Detective Constable Susannah Cowley had made a monumental mistake in agreeing to a date with George Hutchinson, one that would almost certainly lose her her job. It was a pity, Sherlock thought. She had nerves of steel and thought incredibly quickly, able to drop "Port Louis" into the conversation at a second's notice, trusting he would know the capital of Mauritius off the top of his head. Mauritius, ideal holiday destination for rich Brits during a January of unprecedented cold. Mauritius, four hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. Mauritius was going to bed, and so was Cowley's imaginary jetlagged father. "Good work, Susannah," he said.

"I'll let you go, Dad… call me tomorrow morning, okay? Great to hear you two got in safe."

~o0o~

"Safe?" Lestrade asked him as he hung up the line.

"For now," he said. "We've only got six minutes to get in there, though. I recommend going in the ordinary way. She certainly doesn't sound like she's under threat, and we don't want this becoming a hostage or suicide situation if it doesn't need to be."

"What, we're just going to knock on the door?" John asked.

"Sorry, John. Hardly the dramatic conclusion to the case you were anticipating, but it's the safest for everyone."

"You can't guarantee he's not going to turn violent," Lestrade said.

"No, I can't. But this is a man who used all of Joseph Barnett's violent rage to service his own psychosexual urges. He didn't kill them himself. He's a coward."

"Cowards can be pushed into violence," John said.

"Yes, they can. Which is why we'll need to treat him with kid gloves." Sherlock looked at Lestrade. "For once," he said, "I suggest we leave the talking to you."

* * *

They waited on the cross-street for a few minutes, then walked up toward Cowley's place—an old Victorian house, grand and dignified in its day, now renovated into separate, rather dingy little flats. Warm light spilled out of the windows of Cowley's flat just as Lestrade knocked on the door. Beside him, Sherlock glanced up. Rain had started to spit onto his hair and forehead.

There was a longer pause than Sherlock expected, and he was just about to suggest he go himself to the back wall to have a look, when they heard the security chain slide open and the door, sticky from damp and infrequent use, abruptly gave way.

For a psychopath, Sherlock had to agree that George Hutchinson fell on the boring side of ordinary-looking. He was dressed up for his date in an expensive bottle-green shirt and black jacket, with only his blond hair down to show tonight was pleasure, not business.

"Mr. Hutchinson," Lestrade said. "Hello."

Hutchinson looked confused, gaze bouncing between Sherlock and John as if trying to work out who they were. "Hello," he said, realisation dawning. "Can I help you?"

"Yes," Lestrade said. "I hope so, anyway. Mr. Hutchinson, this is Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, two colleagues who are helping us with the Whitechapel Killer case. We've just a couple of questions about your witness statement, if that's okay?"

Hutchinson shrugged and open the door, admitting all three of them. "Sure," he said as they trooped into the living room, narrow and low-eaved. At the far end lay a kitchenette on the left and a short hall on the right with three doors. Bathroom. Bedroom. Study. "I'd ask you to sit down, but it's not my house. Susie's just in the loo, so…"

"It's fine. I'm sure she won't mind." Lestrade sat down in the armchair, though both Sherlock and John remained standing. He tried not to look at John, who was edging slightly toward the hall. "I didn't know you two were dating."

"We're not," Hutchinson said quickly.

Lestrade glanced at the dining room table, set out with the remains of a main course, two used wine glasses and a pair of lit candles.

Hutchinson followed Lestrade's gaze to the table, and then to a closed door off the hall, clearly the bathroom. "It's… complicated," he said lamely. "Now what's this about the witness statement, Inspector?"

"Well, I suppose you heard we made an arrest earlier today," Lestrade said.

"The boyfriend," he said, nodding. "God, how awful."

"But of course you're going to have to identify him from a line-up."

Hutchinson blinked. "Sorry," he said, "what?"

"Well, you mentioned in your statement seeing a guy going in with Mary around two this morning, right? Having a look at your statement, the hair and eye colour thing are close enough, and of course, we never expect anyone to get someone's height accurately. But the clothes you described on our Mystery Man are totally different to the way Joseph Barnett was dressed when we interviewed him."

"Maybe he changed…?"

Lestrade looked at Sherlock and shrugged. "I suppose he could have," he admitted, fiddling with one sleeve of his jacket. "There's another question I need to ask, Mr. Hutchinson. All the while we've been talking, I've had a watch on. And it's the same one I had on when we first met." He held up one hand to show him the tan-line on his wrist, then slipped something into the front pocket of his jacket. "Mind telling me what it looked like?"

"How on earth should I know?"

"Great. You understand my problem, then."

Hutchinson's gaze strayed nervously to Sherlock. "Er… no…?" he faltered, trying for a nervous little laugh. "I don't think I'm getting you at all, Lestrade."

"You said you knew Liz Stride a little bit," Lestrade went on. "And Annie Chapman, of course. What you didn't disclose is that you were a case worker with every single one of the Ripper's victims. We do check these things, you know."

Hutchinson looked like he was contemplating whether it was worth lying about this one. "… Okay," he finally said meekly.

"So I've got a witness who's given a statement with way more detail on it than there should be, who reckons he stood outside a casual acquaintance's flat in the middle of winter for an hour for no reason, who blatantly lied about his ties with three out of six women who were brutally murdered in the last week. Guess what that makes you?"

"I—"

"Do you know, Mr. Hutchinson," Sherlock said, interrupting. "I'm hardly ever present when Lestrade makes his arrests."

"It's true," Lestrade chipped in. "He leaves me with all the crap jobs."

"But I'm here now," he continued, ignoring Lestrade. "I'm here because I wanted to see the man who stood and watched while Joseph Barnett killed and mutilated six women. I wanted to see the man who pretended to be Annie Chapman's friend, someone who could help her, then lured her into a backyard where a serial killer was waiting to slit her throat and pull her intestines out. I wanted to see the man who masturbated while he watched her die." Then, looking him up and down, "I'm disappointed. I thought you'd be someone _important_."

Hutchinson bolted.

John reached the hall before he did, elbowing him hard across the ear. Hutchinson fell sprawling, but got to his feet somehow, shoving John back against the wall. Sherlock grabbed him and slammed him down again, but he bit down on his arm, sinking his teeth into the flesh, and scrambled for the door. Sherlock, in pursuit, reached it just as it was flung shut in his face. He opened it again in time to see, in the floodlights over the kitchen window, Dyer throw Hutchinson down face-first on the lawn, a boot placed firmly in the small of his back while Donovan brought out her handcuffs.

"George Hutchinson," he heard her say, "I am arresting you…"

"Make sure it's for assault as well," he called to her petulantly, inspecting the bite mark on his arm, which had drawn blood. If nothing else, that should stitch Hutchinson up for a while…

"Sherlock," Lestrade said.

Something in his voice made Sherlock turn. Lestrade was down on his heels beside John, who was sitting on the floor, back up against the archway wall. In the fluorescent light from overhead, Sherlock thought, for one second, that he was...

"John—"

"I'm all right," he said, opening his eyes. He planted his palms on the carpet, as if he was trying to stand up. Sherlock dropped beside him and put one hand on his forehead, and he slapped it away petulantly. "I'm fine. I'm just… give me a minute…"

"I don't know what happened," Lestrade said, bewildered. "He just went down—"

Sherlock ignored this, grabbing John's wrist to press two fingers against it. "Weak and fast," he reported after a few seconds. "Call an ambulance, Lestrade."

"No, I don't need an _ambulance."_ John shut his eyes and took a breath.

"Oh that's rich, coming from someone who a _lways_ calls an ambulance for other people, no matter how minor the malaise," Sherlock retorted. "Forget waiting on tomorrow's diagnosis; we're going to the hospital tonight. The end."

"Fine," John said. "But not in an ambulance."

"Why not?"

"Because they'll take me to the _nearest_ hospital," he said.

"… And your treating doctor and test results are at St. Thomas's," Sherlock finished. "All right. Makes sense."

By now Lestrade looked completely baffled. "Okay," he said slowly, "I only got about half of that, but if you need to go to hospital and you don't want an ambulance, I'll drive you in."

"No," Sherlock said. "You're the detective in charge here."

"And Donovan's capable of wrapping things up without me." He stood up, heading across the kitchen toward the back door. "Give me five minutes," he said, "just to check they've got this bastard in hand. From the sounds of things, Donovan's set him off crying. And I think Cowley's still in the bathroom, like you told her to be. It'd be nice if she followed instructions this well _all_ the time."

* * *

The first twenty minutes of the trip to St. Thomas's went by in silence. John looked out the window, streetlights and shop lights dappling his pallid, damp face; in the driver's seat, Lestrade cleared his throat occasionally, as if he was about to speak, but never did. Sherlock, sitting beside John in the back seat, decided to leave what was sure to be a fascinating discussion on the Ripper case until later. He glanced at his phone once or twice, wondering whether it would be possible for him to ring Harry and tell her John was being taken to hospital before he had a chance to reach over and stop him.

Finally, John said, "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" Sherlock asked.

"Like you're expecting me to drop dead right here."

"If you drop dead right here," Sherlock retorted, "I'll be very annoyed. When I said I'd follow you into hell, I assumed you'd do the decent thing and give me time to dress appropriately for it." He paused, but John did not acknowledge the quip. "Let me call Harry," he said.

"Nope."

"John—"

"I said no, Sherlock." John spoke carefully, trying to overcome what was becoming a slur.

"I'm not arguing this for Harry's sake," Sherlock said. Truth be told, he could have cheerfully strangled Harriet Watson at that moment. "Molly deserves to know, and she can't meet us at the hospital without Harry's help."

"It's not fair to tell Molly until we get there and know something. And Harry doesn't do well with getting a fright…"

Abruptly, Sherlock remembered Harry's performance when John had been hospitalised last time. Put like that, he had a good point. Just then, the car curved along the road, and John swallowed a little yelp and clutched at the door handle.

"Sorry. You okay?" Lestrade asked him over his shoulder.

John nodded. "Yeah," he said, exhaling.

"Five minutes." Lestrade flicked on the radio: some sort of talkback channel, though it was on too low for any of them to really make any words out. Sherlock glanced out the window and saw they were crossing Blackfriar's Bridge. The icy Thames was scribbled with light.

* * *

Lestrade parked his car in one of the waiting bays: driving a police vehicle, even an unmarked one, had its benefits. He got out. "You stay here," he said, and Sherlock almost laughed; as if John was capable of going anywhere. "I'll go in and get a wheelchair."

"It's fine," John said, opening the car door. "I can walk…"

But after two attempts to get to his feet and stay there, he sank back down into the seat, defeated. Sherlock got out and walked around the car to stand beside him, and they watched Lestrade make his way across the ambulance turning bay and into the hospital entrance, hands in pockets.

"Thanks," John muttered, though Sherlock couldn't tell if this was sarcasm or not. He handed him a handkerchief, and he wiped the sweat off his face and handed it back without really looking at him.

"You can't walk," Sherlock pointed out, "and I'm not carrying you. If you have any more ideas for getting you into the A&E with dignity, I'd like to hear them."

"I know people," John said, glancing past Sherlock toward the hospital doors. He swiped his forehead again with the back of one trembling hand. "People who work here. If they see me—"

"If they see you, they will naturally conclude that you are, like everyone else on earth, human; that you're having some sort of medical emergency which has rendered you incapable of your normal independence, and that it is their job to assist in your healing process."

John nodded and mouthed the word _okay_ , but he didn't look particularly convinced.

"I know," Sherlock began.

"You've said that a lot today."

"Yes, and feel free to remind me of my earlier mistake every day for the rest of my life. What I know now is that you're feeling helpless and humiliated. Understandable, I suppose, but neither of those emotions are helpful." He paused. "Or justified _."_

"I—"

"When he was fourteen," Sherlock said, "Mycroft developed an obsession with photography and videography."

John put one palm on his forehead for a second, as if checking his own temperature. "Did he? That's nice."

"And not just because both were popular in the early Eighties, and he's always insisted on being ahead of trend curves. Put your mind to work, John. I know you're feeling faint, but this one's easy. Tell me why Mycroft was the one behind the camera."

John shut his eyes. "Because," he said, "he didn't want to be the one in front of it."

Sherlock nodded. "Because he developed a weight problem, or something he considered a weight problem, and decided that obsessing about recording everything known to man except his own body was the way to deal with it. A similar logic lies behind your medical career."

"… Sorry?"

"It's an adage that doctors make for terrible patients. But they don't become terrible patients because they're doctors—they become doctors _because they're terrible patients_. You, for example. You've been concerned about your long-term health since you were a teenager. But your work in medicine means you get to ignore your own health while working on other people's... John? If you're going to be sick—"

John grasped at the car door for support and vomited between his feet. Sherlock stepped back—then cried out in alarm. His own shoes, and John's, were both drenched crimson.


	30. Chasing Zebras

The next hour passed in a blur for Sherlock, and he had few clear memories of it after. A flurry of people, some in white or blue coats, seemed to arrive at the car out of nowhere: crowding him out, insisting he calm down, though he thought himself calm and rational already. Asking him questions about John's age, his medical history, his symptoms. If John had found the prospect of a wheelchair embarrassing, he was surely going to be mortified, even if only in retrospect, about being transferred inside via wheeled trolley. Sherlock followed behind, forlorn. It was only when he'd somehow made his way to an overheated, overlit waiting room somewhere in the A&E department that he realised he had no idea where Lestrade was.

Completely ignoring the sign on the wall, crudely representing a 1990s-style mobile phone inside a red circle and with a red strike through it, he pulled out his own phone and sent a text:

 _Where are you? - S_

 _Today 8:57pm_

Unlikely he'd receive a response, but it was worth a try, and less effort than wandering around trying to find Lestrade in person. He was just about to put his phone back in his pocket when he remembered: Molly.

Molly didn't know.

But Molly couldn't drive. And anyhow, some vicious and unreasonable part of Sherlock wanted to make this personal with Harriet Watson. He made his way out along a sloping tunnel and through a pair of double automatic doors leading to a side entrance to the hospital, a sort of three-cornered courtyard facing away from the main street. Since there seemed to be nobody about, he lit up a cigarette and called Harry's mobile number.

"Found him?" was her opening question, without even taking the trouble of saying hello.

"St. Thomas's Hospital," he said.

"What?"

"He vomited blood all over the carpark."

 _"What?"_

"Don't frighten Molly, but you need to bring her here, quickly."

"Wait, hang on, let's go back to the bit where the last I hear he sent Molly a dear-John, pun not intended, and left while she wasn't even home, and now you're telling me he spewed blood all over a hospital carpark? What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know yet," he said. "Why don't you ask, oh, _Mycroft?"_

There was a long pause on the line while Harry took all of this in. "We're actually at the hospital next door with the twins, if you're interested," she finally said.

"I'm not."

"We're coming. Fifteen, twenty minutes."

Sherlock hung up on Harry, since the only other alternative was to continue to give her a sizeable piece of his mind. A piece of his mind she did not deserve, since he had to admit to himself that he, too, would have concluded that the evidence Harry had access to suggested John was having an affair. She had either not had the resources or the intelligence to investigate Patricia Crew's partner.

He felt faintly nauseated after the second cigarette, though he'd reached into the packet for a third before realising. He put it away petulantly, looking around himself, as if he was likely to find something in the dingy carpark to occupy his hands and help steady his nerves. There was nothing. Not knowing what else to do, he finally made his way back to the A&E. An enquiry at the nurse's station met with a bovine look and a head shake from the duty nursing assistant: _Sorry, we don't know anything yet._

"You can't tell me anything?" he tried again.

"No, sorry." Though she didn't look particularly sorry, and Sherlock had to resist the urge to punch a nearby wall: She didn't care about John. John Watson was another patient to her, one of dozens she saw every day. Some of them died. She didn't particularly mind when they did, and soon forgot about them. He took a deep breath, trying to keep his temper from fraying.

"Okay," he said. "I need information on how John Watson is, as soon as possible. Will you tell me if you hear anything?"

She nodded. "His doctor will be out when there's something to tell," she said, and although he couldn't be sure, he thought she might have been at least trying to be sympathetic. He was about to let her know where he would be—as if that wasn't in full sight of where she was sitting—when he heard someone calling his name from the opposite end of the corridor.

He looked up. Lestrade had just emerged from one of the consultation rooms and was making his way over.

"Lestrade—"

"Sit down, and don't have kittens," he said, hands held out placatingly. "Just had a word with his doctor. He's fine."

Sherlock blinked. "He's _fine?"_

"All right, and by 'fine' I mean he's miserable, but he's not in danger. More's the point, he doesn't have cancer."

Sherlock sank down into the nearest chair.

"Amazing how fast they can expedite biopsy results when a senior police officer maybe, just a bit, threatens to arrest them if they don't," Lestrade said cheerfully, not knowing how else to respond to this.

"They're sure?" Sherlock spoke on the exhale. "They're _sure_ it's not cancer?"

"Sure as they can be at this stage, though I think they're going to do a bit more digging. A couple of his markers are well up, but nothing to suggest cancerous cells. Some sort of long-named gastric infection, apparently."

"Helicobacter Pylori?"

"That's the one. Caused an ulcer that's been bleeding for a while, which brought on…" Lestrade pulled a tiny police-issue notepad out of the inside pocket of his jacket and read out, "Anaemia, hypotension, hypoglycaemia, dehydration and an infection in both kidneys."

Sherlock processed this at lightning speed. Anaemia and hypotension were both a given with internal blood loss. Low blood sugar, dehydration and infected kidneys were not. It suddenly occurred to him that the last time he'd seen John eating something was a single piece of sashimi three days before. And he'd winced at every sip of that cup of tea back at the Premier Inn earlier in the night.

"They've got him on some sort of medication for the internal bleeding, and they'll keep him in overnight for observation while they fiddle with his fluid and blood levels," Lestrade was saying. "Maybe another night, depending on how that goes. But a course of antibiotics should set the whole thing right." He paused. "When did all this 'cancer' business start? He didn't tell me about that."

"He didn't tell anyone. Not until a few hours ago. I thought—Harry thought—his behaviour indicated he was having an affair. I confronted him, and he told me the truth. Molly doesn't know."

"But how long? You don't wake up one morning feeling crap and instantly think 'I've got cancer'."

"Since before Christmas, I'm told. He didn't want to worry anyone, so he didn't say anything."

"Bloody idiot." Lestrade glanced down the corridor toward the ward.

"I concur. Let me tell him that in person."

"I thought you'd say that." Lestrade fished into his pocket for his warrant card and handed it over the desk to the nurse on duty, who was still watching them with the curious passivity of her profession. "Detective Inspector Lestrade of the Metropolitan Police," he rattled off. "Both this man and the patient in bed twelve are involved in an open homicide case. Mr. Holmes here isn't a blood relation or next of kin, but he'll need full, 24-hour access to Dr. Watson's bedside."

"I can't do that without a court order," she objected, though she took the warrant card.

"Okay," he said, unperturbed. "So I'll go to a magistrate and get an interim court order. It'll be granted, but by the time that happens, I'm not going to be impressed that you made me go to all that effort just so a guy could visit his best friend in hospital. Dr. Watson's condition is listed as stable. An after-hours visitor or two won't do him any further harm."

Joking aside, this was as close to a threat as Lestrade was ever prepared to make on duty, but it worked. She bit her lip, peered at his ID and then up at him and said, "I know you."

"Oh?" Lestrade took his card back and tucked it into his coat pocket.

"You were on that documentary before Christmas," she said, her former disinterest falling from her so abruptly that the change was startling. "About that guy who murdered his mother out in Bristol."

"Why are we talking about a documentary?" Sherlock interjected, but Lestrade ignored him and offered the nurse his most charming smile.

"Yes, that's right," he said.

"I didn't think you were a real detective," she said.

Lestrade looked genuinely puzzled. "Okay," he said. "What did you think I was…?"

"I don't know. An actor…? I thought perhaps the real detective wasn't as… photogenic… and I'm digging a deep hole here, aren't I—oh, bollocks," she suddenly exclaimed, hearing the figure of speech her brain had just produced. On hearing herself then say the word _bollocks_ she looked like she was about to burst into tears, but Lestrade gave Sherlock a wry glance.

"Real detective, and paid like it," he told her. "So thanks for helping me out."

* * *

Sherlock went into the darkened ward and found John's bed. Drawing the curtain around for privacy, he noted that John was conscious but quiet, propped upright by the raised top portion of the bed. Someone had coerced or forced him into a hospital gown, which made him look pale and gaunt. His left hand and arm were a network of IV ports. Sherlock noted each medication in turn as he pulled up a chair.

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.

"We're both in a lot of trouble," Sherlock finally said.

"Hmm? Why?"

He cleared his throat. "Well," he said. "It's just that I keep telling Molly I'll look after you. I'm not sure this is what she meant."

"Oh, Christ," John said. "Did someone—"

"Molly's on her way. She and Harry were just next door with the twins. I assume they have Charlie with them."

John frowned. "Anything wrong?"

"With the twins? No. Just the usual maternal visit, I imagine." When John shut his eyes and did not reply, Sherlock said, "You look terrible."

"Mmm. I bet."

"I knew you were stressed, but I didn't think you'd actually get an ulcer over it."

"You don't get ulcers from stress," John said. "It's a bacterial infection."

Sherlock nodded. He had only a passing aquaintance with Helicobacter Pylori, so this was going to require some research. What he already knew was that John's medical theory was a half-truth. Stress did not cause ulcers, but it certainly made them worse. "Is it contagious?" he asked.

"How long's a piece of string?" John shifted so that he was sitting up a little more. "The bacteria's contagious. But loads of people have it and don't know. You only get sick if your immune system's crap to begin with. Probably picked this up from the hospital."

"Does this mean the twins are in any danger?"

John shook his head. "Not until we know more."

Sherlock glanced down at his shoes. "I told you it wasn't cancer."

"But you thought it was."

"Yes," Sherlock admitted, glancing at his shoes again. "For a couple of hours."

"I think both of us were chasing zebras," John said. "And both of us knew better."

"Sorry, what?" Sherlock's gaze strayed to the drip in John's arm; noticing, for the first time, that although there was a PCA of morphine spliced into the IV, it was set to zero. He was refusing pain medication.

"Oh, expression we use in medicine," he was explaining. "Say you find tracks on Hampstead Heath… hoof-prints. _Could've_ been made by a zebra, but you're an idiot if you're not looking for a horse."

"'Chasing zebras'," Sherlock repeated to himself. "That's... remarkable."

"The opposite of your motto," John said. "Once you've eliminated the obvious, go for the more exotic. My symptoms _should_ have been a bleeding ulcer until proven otherwise."

"You panicked." Sherlock shrugged. "That's okay."

"How is it okay?"

"You had an ill wife, premature twins, and a toddler to care for," Sherlock said. "I think it perfectly understandable that at the first sign of illness, you panicked. What's less understandable is your insistance on not telling anyone, to the point where you knew Harry had assumed you were having an affair, and you preferred that to telling her the truth."

"I thought I'd be okay," John mumbled. "If I thought I was going to ruin your case, I'd have stayed at the flat…"

For a good five seconds, Sherlock honestly had no idea what John was referring to. "It's our case," he said when the penny finally dropped. "And Hutchinson's in the lockup with no harm done. I doubt he'll get bail. The trial will be fascinating."

"Mmm." John shut his eyes and took a shaky breath.

"Are you in pain?"

"No." But John glanced at the PCA, as if he was considering using it. "I'm just going to sleep now, 'kay?"

* * *

John had no idea how long he'd been sleeping for when he was roused by someone touching his wrist. He opened his eyes, expecting to see a nurse. It took him a few seconds to comprehend that somehow, Molly was sitting in the chair beside him, looking pinched and pale in the fluorescent light streaming in behind her. His gaze strayed to her loose maternity dress, under which she was nursing a ten-inch incision that wasn't even properly closed up yet.

"I knew it was your health," she said before he could formulate something coherent. "I suppose you thought you looked fine. You didn't."

He shifted uncomfortably. "Fooled Sherlock," he said.

"Yes. Because Sherlock can't see past the end of his own nose sometimes," she said. "It's all very well to observe things, but you have to know what they mean."

Having no idea what to say, he glanced toward the doorway. He could barely make out anything except a vague rectangle of light, and wondered if someone had given him morphine without his realising it.

"John," Molly said, "you're the bravest person I know. Or I thought you were. Do you know how disappointed I am to find out you're such a coward?"

He thought on this for a few seconds, then said, "No. I don't. I think that might go a bit beyond my imagination."

"I'd prefer you to have been having an affair."

"… Seriously?"

She nodded. "Yes, in a way. I can handle you lying to me because you're doing something stupid, something wrong—you know, because you know I'll be angry about it? But how am I supposed to handle you lying to me about something that isn't your fault, and something you can't help, because you don't trust me?"

"Molly… wait. Gimme me a second to think... Head's still a bit… you know." He closed his eyes and gave himself a good half a minute before saying, "I trust you."

"Oh?" Disbelief fairly dripped off her voice.

"Trusted you to do the best you could. Trusted you to look after me. That was the problem, Molly. You shouldn't have had to do that. Not after all you've been through."

"After all _we've_ been through."

"Nobody took any of my body parts without my permission."

"They did," she said. "Before Charlie was born. They took most of your spleen out, remember? You were in hospital for weeks."

"Not the same thing," he protested. "They didn't…" He searched around for the right word and came up short.

"They did what they had to do to save your life," she said. "Just like they had to do a hysterectomy to save mine. I know you keep forgetting because I spend all day in a lab or a morgue, but I'm actually a doctor. And I know they wouldn't have opted for an open, emergency hysterectomy unless it was either that or let me die. You know that, too, Dr. Watson."

"Mmm."

"But you decided that agreeing to the hysterectomy made you the worst person in the world. And you didn't even ask me how _I_ felt about it."

"How do you feel about it?"

"I like being alive." She reached over and squeezed his hand. "And John, I like _you_ being alive. I like our kids being alive. Did it ever occur to you that you should have told someone you were sick, because if something happened to you while you were looking after Charlie on your own…"

He made a vague noise of assent, and she let him imagine the consequences of such a scenario before venturing, "When we're both better, maybe you should come to work with me one day."

"Why?"

"So you can see what I do."

"I know what you do."

"No, I mean, actually _see_ it. Because… because I know people think I'm… sort of… that," she said. "But John, I do post-mortems and other things most people would think are _horrible_ , just awful. And I'm good at them."

"I know you are."

"If I can handle cutting someone's skull open with a circular saw and pulling their brain out, I can handle you being sick, okay? Even when I'm sick. Even when our daughters are sick. I'm not delicate. Please stop treating me like a doll on a shelf."

* * *

Sherlock was in the waiting room again, playing on his phone, despite the stern admonition on the wall behind him. He felt, rather than saw, someone sit down beside him, and glanced up to see Harry. She had Charlie, fast asleep, up against her shoulder.

"It's fine," she said wearily.

"What is?"

"You don't have to talk to me. I just wanted to sit near a human being, that's all."

After a long silence he asked, "How are the twins?"

"Good," she said, hoisting Charlie up a little further without waking her. "Sophie might be home in ten days, a fortnight. And poor little Lulu is finally picking up."

"Her name is Louise," Sherlock said humourlessly. Then he paused. "Wait. Do her parents actually call her Lulu?" _Charlie_ had take a few months for him to adjust to, though by now it had stuck so well that he didn't even call her 'Charlotte' in the privacy of his own head now. But _Lulu…?_

"No," Harry said, trying not to grin. "And John gets just as worked up about me doing it as you do."

Sherlock, before he could help himself, reached over and tweaked one of Charlie's blonde curls. Molly had remarked the day before that those curls were dropping; Charlie's adult hair would most assuredly be straight.

Harry said, "Eight."

"I'm sorry…?"

"That's how many girlfriends John's cheated on in the past—that I know of. Eight. Even for a cheating bastard, that's quite an achievement."

Sherlock had never had what could be termed a girlfriend, and had no idea how many incidents of cheating one had to go through to be titled a 'cheating bastard', but even he thought eight incidents of cheating was a lot. "And one of those people was Clara."

"Oh, no." Harry offered him a tired smile. "See, goes to show you don't know it all. Clara was his girlfriend for a couple of years, and as far as she or I know, he never cheated on her. She cheated on him."

"With you."

"He was a bit pissed off about that."

"So I imagine." Sherlock had a sudden vision of Mycroft driving off into the sunset with Carsten Mohler, and bit his tongue, hard, to prevent an explosion of laughter.

"I was wrong," she said. "And I can't wait to grovel to John and ask his forgiveness. But I just wanted to speak in my own defence. You told me I was being ridiculous, but you didn't tell me very _convincingly_. You must have thought there was a fair chance I was right."

"… Maybe."

After another pause, she said, "You know our mum died of cancer. I think I wasn't even that worried about being a drunk for all those years, because I had it in my head that I was a walking cancer magnet, and that would kill me a whole lot earlier than the drinking."

"Mmm."

"John nursed her, our mum... though he'd squirm if you called it that. Dad turned into a bit of a wreck, and I was a selfish brat who didn't care about anyone except myself."

"I'm sure that's not true."

"I'm sure it is, 'cause I was there. I think after Mum died John figured he might become a doctor, and both fix the world's ills and get Dad's approval for being a genius. Two birds, one stone."

"A genius?"

"Christ, Sherlock, he took a year off school to nurse Mum and still got six A's. I know you and Mycroft are off the charts, but John's no dummy. Except when it comes to things like, oh, looking after himself, not being a complete fucking martyr to other people… you know, the usual." She paused. "So even though he's still a cheating bastard, and an idiot, and all sorts of things, I suppose we'll have to rally 'round. That's okay. Not sure about you, but I still owe John roughly two months of waiting on him hand on foot before we're even."

Something in Sherlock capitulated. Something that desperately needed hot coffee. He stood up. "Based on his diagnosis, it won't be nearly that long," he said. "Please, take Charlie and Molly home. They're both exhausted. And the last thing we need is for Molly to have some sort of relapse."


	31. Your Whole World on Fire

Sherlock and Lestrade looked through the viewing glass into Interview Room 3 to where George Hutchinson sat with his lawyer, a barrel-chested, white-haired Irishman named Colin Murphy. Hutchinson was fidgeting with an elastic band over his fingers.

It was seven o'clock on the morning after his arrest, and after several hours of cooling his heels in a cell, Hutchinson's official police interview was about to begin. Lestrade had left the hospital shortly after ten the night before, but he and Melissa had been up most of the night preparing for the interrogation. What Sherlock Holmes had been up to was not a matter of official record. Lestrade thought he'd spent part of the night at the hospital, though he'd arrived at Metropolitan headquarters on time and in order.

"Looks like Hutchinson is our best bet," Lestrade said to him.

"There's no chance of Barnett talking?"

Lestrade shook his head. "Not blessed with too much intelligence, that one," he said, "so he's decided his best bet is to shut up and deny everything."

Sherlock snorted.

"Yeah. Even his lawyer thinks that's a terrible strategy. But Hutchinson's proud of himself. He'll talk."

"Not if he thinks you want him to. He plays games, Lestrade."

He shrugged. "Strictly speaking, we don't _need_ him to talk. The forensic and witness evidence against him can stand on its own. Still, I bet the friends and relatives of six dead women would appreciate it."

"As would I," Sherlock said grimly.

"Ah, yeah, I've been asking around about that," Lestrade said. "Duty officer looked in on him every half hour last night, but he hasn't mentioned you in any way." He reached for the door. "Come on. Let's change that."

After recording the preliminaries of the interview for the benefit of the recording, Lestrade pulled up a chair opposite Hutchinson. There was another chair beside him, but Sherlock took some silent prompting to sit down.

"Hope you slept well," Lestrade said to Hutchinson.

"What," Hutchinson said, "on a pallet, with a horse blanket?"

"It's a suicide-proof blanket," Lestrade said. "And you're in the lockup, not the Shangri-La."

"Bloody froze all night."

"Yeah, I bet Martha Tabram was freezing the night she died, too."

"Can I at least have my shoelaces back now?"

"I'll think about it. Later." Lestrade put the manila file he held onto the desk in front of Hutchinson. "Do you know what that is, Mr. Hutchinson?"

He shrugged. "Paperwork?"

"It's your criminal file, sunshine. Now's the time for you to confess."

"Mr. Hutchinson," Colin spoke up. "You do not have to say anything to these charges—"

"Confess to what?" Hutchinson said, ignoring him.

"Eleven cats," Lestrade said. "And five dogs, including someone's Seeing Eye Dog. As far west as Shoreditch, as far east as Barking. You sure moved around."

"I didn't—"

"Did mutilating people's pets make you feel powerful?" Sherlock asked him. "Powerful enough for me to give you the attention you were so clearly desperate for?'

"Inspector Lestrade," Colin interjected again, "why is there a civilian in here badgering my client? If you—"

Hutchinson ignored him, turning his attention to Sherlock. "Have you ever tried to kill a dog, Mr. Holmes?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Hmm… oddly enough, no."

"It's not as easy as you think."

"I'm not impressed with putrid little crimes like yours just because they involve a degree of physical difficulty," Sherlock said with contempt. "And if you thought you could get my attention simply by being a sadist, you know very little about me. Sadists are boring. If you wanted to impress me, you should have been smarter."

Just for a second, Hutchinson's face fell.

"The good thing about modern investigations," Lestrade jumped in, "is that things like electronic surveillance and modern forensics practically do the work for us in places."

This was true; what he did not point out, though it was also true, was that the one thing a modern murderer had on his side was time. Electronic surveillance and modern forensics would have likely caught George Hutchinson eventually, and would definitely have caught Joseph Barnett. In the meantime, though, they'd been able to murder six women.

"So," he continued, opening the file and taking out some photocopied pages. "Joseph Barnett's your little lapdog, is he?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Keeping his silence, even when we've got cold, hard evidence that you two colluded to commit murder. Texts are notoriously easy for the police to trace, even when you've deleted them." He passed the pages across to Hutchinson, who picked them up and peered at them.

"Stupid bastard," he muttered, throwing them down again.

"Yeah, that's a known problem with killing partnerships," Lestrade said. "You're twice as likely to get caught, especially when we can prove you know one another, and one of you is stupid enough to kill the woman they lived with for a year. Why did _you_ do it?"

"I didn't do anything."

"I'll rephrase that. Why did you help lure victims into Joe Barnett's path and then watch as he killed and mutilated them?"

Hutchinson gave him a stony glance. "Because," he said, "I liked it."

Lestrade shot Sherlock an exasperated glance.

"But it wasn't torture you liked," Sherlock said. "The forensic psychologist assigned to the case pointed out the women were killed with a minimum of pain. Their bodies were mutilated after death. By you or Barnett? Or both of you?"

Hutchinson shrugged. "What makes you happy, Sherlock Holmes? I mean, really _happy_. Joy running through your veins like an electric shock. Your whole world on fire."

"Most men would say 'sex'," Sherlock remarked.

"Not you, though."

"Even rats copulate. It's not an achievement and nothing to boast of."

Hutchinson raised an eyebrow. "So what makes you happy is having something to boast of?"

"If you're as obsessed with me as you claim, you'd know what makes me happy," Sherlock said.

Hutchinson nodded. "So you don't solve crimes out of any desire to help other people. Bring justice to the world. Nothing like that. You do it to get off. I'm surprised you've managed to keep your hand out of your pants the whole time we've been talking." He leaned across the table to him. "So tell me, Mr. Holmes. You get off on dead women with their intestines pulled out, same as me. So why am _I_ the criminal?"

Sherlock got to his feet. "You're repulsive," he said, and walked out.

* * *

Half an hour later, Lestrade left the interview room, having suspended things so that everyone could have a much-needed smoke break. Colin took his client out to the back private courtyard, but Lestrade made his way to the front reception. He'd assumed Sherlock had gone home, or at least to the hospital, and was surprised to find him sitting in a plastic chair, playing feverishly with his phone. Lestrade cleared his throat and sat down beside him.

"Hasn't even got past how he met Polly Nichols yet," he said. "So I called a ten-minute break. This is going to be a long day."

"Mmm." Sherlock did not look up.

"His lawyer's just about having seizures trying to shut him up." After a pause, Lestrade said, "Don't let him get to you."

"I'm not," Sherlock said.

"Okay."

"I'm _not."_

"Okay. Look, nobody'd think badly of you if he did rattle you a bit. He's a psychopath. They get under people's nails; that's what they do. And you're under a lot of pressure."

"I just caught you not one, but _two_ serial killers. I'm not under any pressure." Sherlock turned his phone screen off and put it in the breast pocket of his jacket. "Is Cowley all right?"

"Oh, yeah, she's fine. Staying with her parents for a few days."

"What will happen to her?"

Lestrade sighed. "I stood her down with full pay and reported the case to Internal Affairs," he said. "I had to, Sherlock."

"Clearly."

"I'm going to put in a good word for her, and feel free to do it too, but… it's not looking good. Best case scenario is they'll bump her back into uniform. After which she'll really have to do something spectacular for another chance at making detective."

"Worst case scenario?"

"Fired from the force, with no possibility of rejoining it. They can't do anything worse—her date with George was a breach of police standards, but it wasn't a crime."

Sherlock thought. "Perhaps," he said, "we could present this as a deliberate sting operation on her part."

"Just why are you so anxious to help out Cowley?"

"Because of that conversation I had with her on the phone. She thinks incredibly quickly and she's able to hold her own in a crisis. You know those aren't common traits, even among murder squad detectives."

"No, you're right," Lestrade said. "I'll admit I haven't had a chance to really see what she can do, but she got drafted in from Islington and jumped the queue to do it, same as Dyer did. They don't do that unless you're good. It's a shame."

"But she's not the only person who lost their job from this case," Sherlock said, "is she?"

"No." Lestrade glanced away. "Jack Neil got stood down as well, and this time I say he deserved it. Didn't check Mitre Square because he was busy having a quickie with another girl in an alley off Fenchurch Street…"

He trailed off. A teenage girl had just appeared at the front desk, pushing a younger boy in a wheelchair. Both of them were pale and undernourished, with colourless hair and chinless, doughy faces. The girl had tried to compensate with a great deal of makeup, applied with skill. Lestrade motioned for Sherlock to be quiet, and overheard her ask the desk sergeant, "Hi, um, I was just wondering if Detective Inspector Lestrade was here…?"

"You're in luck," he said, going over before she could be rebuffed and holding one hand out to her. "I'm Greg Lestrade. Hi."

"Hi," she said, returning his handshake a little limply. "I'm Georgie. Georgie Chapman…?"

"Oh, yes, Georgie," he said, suddenly remembering reading in Annie Chapman's victim profile that she had two surviving children from her first marriage: a daughter of about fifteen, and a son about eight who had Cerebral Palsy. He looked down at the boy in the wheelchair.

"My brother," Georgie said. "Jayden."

"Hi, Jayden." Lestrade shook his hand, but after offering him a timid 'hello', the boy looked at his sister for help. He turned back to Georgie. "I'm sorry about your mother," he said.

She nodded. "I just," she said. "We wanted to come and thank you for finding the people who did it. What happens now?"

"Well, both men will probably be remanded until we can get a date for their trial," Lestrade said. "The trial itself mightn't be for a few months, but that's a good thing. Gives the Crown prosecutors loads of time to collect evidence against them and make sure it sticks." He paused. "Where are you living now, Georgie?"

"Auntie Emily's."

Auntie Emily…?

Yes, now he remembered that there were several sisters listed on Annie Chapman's file, as well as a brother who went by the bizarre name of Fountain. Lestrade felt a flash of anger. If Annie's sister Emily was looking after her children, she must have known that Annie was turning tricks in a slum, mid-winter, to keep body and soul together.

"Okay," he said, exchanging a glance with Sherlock, who was still sitting where he'd left him. "Good to hear that you've got somewhere safe. Let me introduce you to Detective Constable Halloran, if I can find him. He's going to be your Family Liaison Officer. Any time you have any questions about the investigation or the trial, or if you need help or want to talk to someone about what happened, you call him, okay? That's what he's there for."

She kicked off the wheelchair brakes to follow Lestrade behind the security doors to Halloran's desk in the incident room. Before he could pull out his security pass, though, something prompted him to hand her his card. "Georgie," he said. "You can also call me if you want. Any time."

* * *

"That was unprofessional," Sherlock remarked as soon as Lestrade had returned.

"Probably," he replied. There was no possiblity of either of them leaving by the street entrance, given the proliferation of news vans and reporters who had been camped outside since the early hours of the morning. Lestrade led them through the security doors again and down a corridor toward the lifts to the basement carpark.

"Letting yourself get personally involved in the case." Sherlock clucked his tongue.

"Of course I am. Annie Chapman came to me with knowledge about Pizer. Expected me to do my job and protect her. Look how that turned out."

"You'd have a point, except Annie wasn't murdered by Pizer."

"Yeah, possibly only because Hutchinson and Barnett found her first." They'd reached the lifts by now, and Lestrade pressed the close-doors button, though Sherlock had told him a million times that this button was a psychological placebo and didn't actually do anything. "How is Pizer, anyway?"

"Living with his brother again," Sherlock said. "I can't answer for his record."

"I'll make sure somebody rings you every time he's dragged in for smacking another woman," Lestrade said. "Come on, I'm dying for a decent coffee."

"I can't." Sherlock glanced at his watch. "I have an appointment with Mycroft that I can't be late for."

* * *

John flicked through four television channels, barely pausing to check what was on them before turning the TV off and throwing the remote down in disgust. The only thing worse than being in hospital, he decided, was being in hospital when you felt well enough to go home. He'd had a spirited debate with his doctor that morning, but it had been to no avail: he was to be on nil-by-mouth for at least twenty-four hours, and would not be released until he could manage to keep down real food and had acceptable blood sugar and blood pressure readings.

Which was not something he could hurry along with willpower.

He caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see that Molly had just arrived. In seconds, he'd evaluated that she looked okay. Had even managed to put on makeup, though she still walked with a stiff, painful gait. Any hospital necessarily involved a lot of walking to navigate.

"Hey," she said, leaning over the mattress to kiss his forehead. He felt a little catch of her breath, as if in pain. "How are you feeling?"

He resisted the urge to tell her that she shouldn't have come in to see him, or to return the question. "Yeah, not bad," he said instead. "Saw my doctor this morning. A couple of days, maybe."

"And after that?"

"I won't need nursing," he promised her. "Long list of things I'm not allowed to have for a few weeks. The main ones are alcohol and coffee."

She clucked her tongue and sat down in a nearby chair, gathering her coat into her lap.

"Charlie?" he asked.

"She's with Harry. I've just been over seeing the twins. They're much the same."

"Oh."

There was an awkward pause.

"I'm sorry I went off at you yesterday," Molly said.

"No…" He glanced away. "I… kind of deserved it."

"Maybe," she said, "but I was still being a bit of a hypocrite." She took a deep breath. "I need to tell you about… something I told my therapist yesterday."

John broke into a cold sweat, but said, "Okay. What did you say?"

"I hate my body."

He gave her a blank look. "Hate it," he echoed. "You mean, hate the way it looks, or…?"

"Everything about it," she said, gaining momentum. "But John, what I hate most is that it failed me, and it failed our girls, and it failed you, and I just… spend all day wanting to crawl out of my own skin." She shrugged in disgust, like she'd just walked into a spider's web.

He though this through for a little while. "Okay," he said. "But can I just point out that you made three people with your body?"

"I didn't do a very good job of things," she said bitterly.

"I dunno," he said. "I happen to think they're all perfect, actually."

"But they're not, are they? And it's because I—"

"It's because you had salmonella poisoning," John said. "And we all feel guilty about that."

At this, she looked at him in genuine surprise. "Why?"

"I should have taken the warning about a salmonella outbreak more seriously. If you'd been in bed when the vomiting kicked in, not up in the middle of the night attending a murder scene, it... might have made a difference. Sherlock thinks he should have remembered about the tea being recalled for salmonella before anyone drank it. Greg and Mel feel guilty because it was their wedding and their menu, and they feel like had a responsibility to keep their guests safe."

"But that's not fair," Molly said. "It's not anyone else's fault."

"It's not yours, either." He fell silent, thinking. "I don't know, Molly. I don't know how to get you to... not hate your body. Which is why I'm not a therapist, I guess."

"Mine says it'll just take time. And more therapy, of course."

"And what do you think?"

"I agree."

John lay back against his pillows again, fidgeting. "Okay," he said. "While we're being honest, I need to tell you something, and you may not think much of me after I do."

She raised one eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Trish Crew," he said. "No, I didn't sleep with her... this decade, anyway. But... I really wanted to, sometimes. There was once... we were having coffee at her place. David was at work and Freya was at violin practice."

"What happened?" she asked softly.

"Nothing." John cleared his throat. "I mean, neither of us did anything. It just got awkward. It could've turned into something. So I went home."

She nodded. "Okay," she said.

"Okay?"

"You're married, John, not blind."

"I won't see her again."

"That's up to you."

Before John could reply, he heard a distinct pair of voices in the corridor. They looked at each other. "If I'd known Mycroft was coming to visit," John said, "I'd have dressed for the occasion…" He trailed off as Sherlock appeared in the ward doorway, Mycroft following behind. "Hi," he said. "Anything on the case, Sherlock?"

"Barnett's pleading not guilty because he's an idiot, and Hutchinson is pleading guilty because he's a psychopath," Sherlock said, taking his scarf off. "Meanwhile, Mycroft and I are due to have a little chat, and I did promise we'd have this somewhere you can watch, so we may as well do it here."

John glanced at Mycroft, who looked as if he'd been ambushed. But surely, he thought, Mycroft didn't let himself be ambushed. "Um," he said. "Are you sure Molly and I need to be here for this…?"

"Yes," Sherlock said. "I need an audience."

"When do you not?" John muttered, giving Molly a wry glance and sinking back down onto his pillows, defeated.

"Mycroft," Sherlock said, ignoring this, "you've known about John's poor state of health for over a week, and you were aware that his doctor was looking for cancer. You were also aware that this was causing him considerable distress, to the extent that you went as far as to confiscate his gun."

"You confiscated his gun?" Molly repeated in a little voice.

"And you didn't tell me," Sherlock continued. "Were you seriously under the impression that all this was something I didn't need to involve myself in? Did you decide not to tell me in the hope that it wouldn't distract me from some idiotic forced reconciliation with our father?"

"I most certainly did _not,"_ Mycroft snapped, with unusual vim; so much so that Sherlock let him subside without following up his advantage. Mycroft steepled his fingers and brought them to his chin, buying a few seconds to think. "Might I remind you, little brother," he said, "that your own health has been precarious for the last few weeks?"

"Oh, for God's sake. I'm a recreational cocaine user, Mycroft, not an invalid."

John, looking at Mycroft, winced. They had both registered Sherlock's refusal to use the word _addict._ His therapy perhaps hadn't been a raging success after all. But Mycroft, it seemed, was not to be derailed in arguing in his own defence. "I only did what I thought was best—"

"Yes, and that's what I find so utterly baffling: that you thought it best that I _didn't know_."

"I didn't think he'd really—"

"Aside from the obvious uselessness of confiscating the gun, of course, the result of which could have been George Hutchinson murdering one or both of us. Nobody needs a gun to commit suicide."

"I could have just stepped off a fourth-floor roof," John agreed, with just a touch of bitterness in his voice.

"Oh, for God's sake," Mycroft groaned. "John was not suicidal and extremely unlikely to become so. His past history of trauma, and the way he processed that trauma, made that perfectly obvious to me."

"So you confiscated the Browning for fun," John remarked.

Mycroft gave him an icy look. "To send a message," he said. "Both of concern and warning. You knew I was aware of your present difficulties, but seemed to think I was trying to hold it over you for blackmail purposes. I was doing nothing of the kind. You're a difficult man to 'help', and I am not in the habit of nice, kind, heart-to-heart chats."

"Thank God for that," John muttered.

"Nevertheless," Mycroft continued, "I accept that this was something Sherlock should have known, and that I could quite possibly have made my sympathy to your situation clearer." He pursed his lips, as if his own words tasted sour. "Please accept my sincerest apologies."

"No," John said.

"… No?"

John looked at Molly, who smiled and shrugged. "It's going to take a lot more than _that_ to smooth things over," he said. "You're going to need to agree to be Sophie's godfather."

"I—" Mycroft stopped. "… I do beg your pardon?"

Sherlock grinned to himself.

"I get it, even if Sherlock doesn't," John continued. "You were looking after me, in your own completely demented way."

"Well, but I hardly think I qualify as a godparent. I'm not in the least religious. I—"

"Oh, these days all you need to do to qualify as a godparent is to be breathing. Sherlock's standing in for both girls, and so's Harry, and I'm not sure we could have found a bigger pair of heathens if we'd advertised for them. We figured we'd get Greg in to be Louise's godfather, and you to be Sophie's."

"He just wants you to pay for Sophie's schooling," Sherlock said.

"If I ever send my kids to a ten-thousand-a-term public school," John said, "feel free to put a bullet in my brain."

"Well…" Mycroft glanced at Sherlock, as if to appeal for his help. "This is… an unexpected privilege. And against church tradition, so far as I understand it, for a girl to have two godfathers."

John shrugged. "It's against church tradition to get them christened twice," he said. "We did think about asking Sharon or Mel or Hayley, but Sharon and Hayley are more like colleagues than friends."

"And I didn't want to put Mel through the trauma," Molly chipped in, nodding.

"Trauma?"

"Oh, don't look so terrified," John said. "You stand up while the priest wets the babies' heads, and promise you'll always be there to have Sophie kidnapped when you want to talk to her, that you'll regularly fiddle with her bank accounts and insurance policy, stalk her, that kind of thing. We'll send you a save-the-date card once we get things organised."


	32. Baker Street

It was a damp evening in early April, and a cold wind was tunnelling up Baker Street. Inside, though, warmth and light spilled through every window and doorway.

As John had predicted, Father Bautista _had_ agreed to re-baptise Sophie Olivia and Louise Beatrice Watson. After five and six weeks in the hospital respectively, both were finally clear of medical intervention and beginning to thrive.

The little company of christening sponsors and guests had gone to a nearby restaurant for the after-church celebrations; but it was now nearly six o'clock, and the residents of 221 Baker Street had returned to it, inviting Greg, Melissa, and Harry with them. Mycroft had shown up to the church, on time and on point, though after the official proceedings were over he'd quickly made vague excuses about his workload and left again. Cosy get-togethers weren't his natural milieu.

Quite on his own, though, Sherlock had decided to host coffee in his living room. He'd even gone to the kitchen to make some himself, ignoring an astonished remark from Harry, who had never seen him do anything in his own kitchen except science experiments.

"I think this godfather gig is going to be good for you, Sherlock," she said from the three-seater sofa where she sat, legs crossed, with Charlie straddling her ankle like it was an elaborate teeter-totter. At intervals, she'd grasp Charlie's hands and swing her up, making her giggle.

"It hasn't had any noticable effect on you," Sherlock retorted.

It was a point of official record that Greg Lestrade, not Sherlock Holmes, was Charlie's godfather. John had asked Sherlock first, and he'd so violently protested on the grounds of religion being a fantasy for morons that John had simply given up and asked Greg instead. Between the pair of them they'd at least coaxed Sherlock to _attend_ Charlie's christening, during which he began to regret saying no, and was too proud to ever admit it.

Harry gave Sherlock a crooked smile. Everyone knew her recovery from alcoholism had been largely due to Charlie. "Smart arse," she said. "Anyway, speaking of, we seem to be missing a few people…"

"John and Molly took the twins down to their flat to change them," Melissa said. "Frankly, I can't believe neither of them have spewed all over those pretty little dresses. God knows they spew everywhere else..."

"So," Sherlock said, quickly changing the subject. He went over to where Melissa was sitting and handing her a hot cup. "What exactly does a godfather do?"

"Don't know," Melissa said. "Highly unlikely I'll be anybody's godfather." She looked over her shoulder at Lestrade, who was raiding the fridge for beer. "Darling," she said, "what's a godfather do?"

Still half-absorbed in the fridge contents, he glanced at her and shrugged. "What an uncle does, I guess," he said. "You give them loads of sugar, wind them up and hand them back."

"No, but really," Sherlock said.

Pulling a handful of bottles out and putting them on the table, Greg pondered this. "I don't know," he said. "I guess you… be a good role model…? God help us."

Sherlock was about to reply when John arrived at the top of the stairs and came in through the kitchen door, beckoning to him. "Sorry, Sherlock," he said quietly. "Could you come down to our flat a minute? Molly's a bit upset."

"What? Why?"

"She put Sophie and Louise down on the bed to dress them and wasn't paying attention, and now she doesn't know which one's which."

"Well, what about you?"

"I wasn't paying attention either. Anyway, if their own mother can't tell them apart, what makes you think I can?"

"I'm a _detective_ , John not—"

"Just come down, will you?"

Sherlock sighed and put his own coffee down long-sufferingly, but he was smiling as John led him down the stairs and into 221a. On his way through, he saw that either John or Molly had attached a red chrysanthemum to the doorframe of their flat: a reminder of a friend who should have been there to celebrate the christening of her namesake, and had been a year in her grave.

Molly, still dressed in the pansy-coloured dress she'd wore to the church, was in the master bedroom, hovering uncertainly over the twins. They were fourteen weeks old now, but still not much bigger than newborns, each dressed in an identical white dress with pansies embroidered on the hem. Charlie was wearing a similar dress in pink. Glancing between those hems and Molly's dress at the church earlier in the day, Sherlock had noticed the embroidery was hand done, by Molly herself. _Maternity leave is doing awful things to her if she's resorting to embroidery._

"Oh, Sherlock," she said, flustered. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying enough attention…"

Sherlock looked the twins over. They _were_ astonishingly alike, with their whisps of brown hair and pink-and-white skin and dark Hooper eyes. One had just discovered her fingers and was fascinated; the other looked fractious, as if she were about to cry. Sherlock picked up each in turn and sniffed them.

"Not always the best idea, doing that," John said.

"Louise," Sherlock announced, handing her to John.

"How can you tell?"

"She smells like Greg's aftershave. Assuming that ten minutes ago you _did_ know which was Sophie and which was Louise, it's more likely he was holding his own goddaughter than Sophie."

"So there's a margin of error there?"

"They can't _possibly_ be identical," Sherlock said. "They're twins, not clones… and you did that on purpose, didn't you," he said, as both John and Molly started to laugh. "You knew the whole time…"

"Oh, Sherlock," Molly said, still laughing. "What sort of parents can't tell their own children apart?" She gave her husband a look.

"Come on," John protested good-naturedly. "I've got a perfect record so far, I just have to think about it longer than you. The identical outfits thing is cute, but I don't think it's working out for me."

"But I _was_ right?" Sherlock persisted, though he was starting to appreciate the joke.

"Yeah." Molly nodded. "Good deduction, Sherlock."

After the twins were dressed, Sherlock and John took them back up the stairs, while Molly stayed back to change herself into something warmer and more comfortable. They met Harry, carrying Charlie, on the first landing.

"What's up?" John asked her.

"Oh, nothing," she said cheerfully. "Charlie's just going to show me her fish. Again."

"Well, to be fair," Sherlock said, "they're different fish."

"Yeah," John said, unimpressed, as they arrived in the living room, just in time to hear Melissa's phone ring. She got up from the armchair and answered it on her way out to the stair landing, finger in her free ear to hear the caller properly.

Lestrade, still hovering in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, gave a shrill whistle to get John's attention. "Oy," he said. "Are you allowed to drink alcohol yet?"

"Why not," John said, laying Louise down on a little playmat on the far side of the room. "One won't kill me."

Lestrade handed a Corona over the back of the chair to him. "How're you feeling, anyway?" he asked. "You look well."

John looked down at himself, silently acknowledging that he'd lost weight. "Yeah, not bad."

"And the job?" Lestrade and Melissa had returned from their month-long honeymoon two days before, so Lestrade had missed most of John's career with the police so far.

"Good," John said. "I mean, it's mostly been fainting, vomiting and sticking plasters so far, and I don't mean members of the public."

"Gregson's got a fainter on his team," Lestrade said. "I take it you've met him."

"I don't think 'met' is the right word. He's mostly been unconscious when we've crossed paths."

Lestrade was about to say something else when Melissa, phone still in hand, came through the kitchen doorway and gently touched his arm to get his attention. "Greg," she said, indicating her phone. "It's Hale. Case."

Lestrade, who'd quite possibly had one or two more drinks than necessary, groaned. "Tell him to bugger off," he said. "I'm still on my honeymoon."

"Yeah, he's ringing me because you're not answering… and you're only on your honeymoon for two more days. He said you'll want this one. Satanists."

"Satanists?"

"Or witchcraft, or something along those lines. Ever heard of a village called Lower Quinton?"

"No."

"You have now. Out in Warwickshire. Some old bloke's been found dead with a pitchfork run through his neck and witchcraft symbols carved on him. They think it's the work of a—"

"It's _never_ the work of a Satanic cult," Sherlock said.

"Yeah, that's not going to cut it in court," Lestrade said, reluctantly taking the phone from Melissa. "Can I use your room, Sherlock?"

Sherlock was just then putting Sophie down beside Louise on the floor. He made an absent movement of agreement with one hand, and Lestrade took the phone and wandered down the hall with it, shutting Sherlock's bedroom door behind him.

From the foot of the stairs, Molly yelped.

Sherlock was first on his feet and down the stairs, with John close behind. They found Molly standing in the front hall with a young man, drawn close to her in a sort of bizarre embrace. The ajar door beyond them let in cold air and a glimpse of streetlights and wet pavement. The stranger was dark-haired and scruffy, wearing jeans and a grey jumper that was now soaked with blood. His left hand was wadded up in something that might have once been a scrap of white t-shirt, and was now nearly black with blood. She was holding it to her chest, bunched up in the folds of the jumper she'd just changed into. The man whimpered like a kicked puppy. He was so pale he seemed about to pass out.

"What the hell…?" John demanded, barging past Sherlock.

"Digit injury, John," she said. "Possible amputation, going by the First Aid and the amount of blood…"

John glanced over to see Harry, Charlie in her arms, standing astonished in the flat doorway. Without prompting, she moved past them—having to gently nudge Sherlock aside from where he was still standing at the foot of the stairs—and hurried up to 221B, taking a protesting Charlie with her.

"Right." John gently prised the man's hand away from Molly. Before he could ask her, she rushed into the flat, obviously after the First Aid kit. "What's your name?" he asked his patient. He had a vague idea that Sherlock was still standing on the bottom step behind him.

"It's…" The man swallowed and swayed on his feet. "It's Victor… Victor Hatherley…"

"Victor, I'm John. Sit down."

There was a low wicker chair a few feet away, and John guided him over to it. Molly returned with the First Aid kit, one so well stocked she had trouble negotiating the flat doorway with it. She set it on the floor beside his chair and, unasked and unhindered, opened it, going through various bandages and wound dressings.

"Give me a look," John said, easing Victor's mangled hand toward himself and gently testing the makeshift dressing, as if he expected a jet of blood to spurt across the room. No such thing happened, though Victor gasped and swallowed hard.

"Just shut your eyes if you don't want to see," John said. "But I've got to, sorry."

Despite his hardened nerves, John allowed himself a shudder on first seeing the extent of the damage, then set about examining the red, spongy surface where the thumb should have been. Victor Hatherley's thumb had been completely amputated. It had been hacked or torn right out from the roots.

"Christ," he said. "You've certainly got that in a mess—but you did the right thing with your first aid." He glanced at the dressings he'd just cast aside… was that a twig? Where the hell had he been that he was using a _twig_ as a splint? "When did this happen?"

"Last night."

"Last night? More than twelve hours ago? Why didn't you go to a hospital?"

"I… I fainted," Victor stammered. "I don't know how long I was out for... when I came to, it was still gushing everywhere. So I…" he gestured helplessly to the injury with his free hand.

"No, you did a good job with it, considering," John said cheerfully. "Not a doctor yourself, are you?"

Victor shook his head. "Hydraulic engineer."

"Workplace accident?"

"You could say." He began to laugh, a high-pitched giggle of hysteria.

John, with his hands full, looked at Molly for help. She tapped him on the cheekbone with two fingers to get his attention. "No," she said, in much the same voice she used to scold Charlie from teasing the cats or trying to climb the bookshelf. "Stop that. Now."

It worked, more effectively than a slap. Victor stopped laughing and shut his eyes, swallowing again. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"That's okay." Molly handed a bottle of saline to John, who uncapped it with his teeth.

"This is going to hurt, sorry," he told his patient. "But like I tell all my patients, sepsis hurts more. Scream all you like, but don't move." He glanced at Molly, who was still rummaging around in the first aid pack for gauze. No; it was high time the world's only consulting detective stopped staring from the foot of the stairs and made himself useful. "Victor," he said, "The guy behind me is Sherlock Holmes. Hold onto him while I do this, okay?"

"What?" Sherlock protested.

"You heard what I said, Sherlock. Come here."

"Why can't Molly do it?"

"Because Molly only has two hands and both of them are busy."

Sherlock reluctantly went over, getting down on his heels beside Victor's chair. Victor threw out his free hand and gripped his arm so hard he winced. Above them, the living room door of 221B opened and Lestrade called down, "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, just give me a minute," John called back, distracted. He squeezed the bottle of cold saline over the stump where Victor's thumb had once been, letting the excess run off onto the chair and onto carpet beneath it. Victor gasped and sank the fingers of his free hand into Sherlock's arm.

"Good," John said. "It's when it _doesn't_ hurt that we start to worry. Just give it a second to do its thing before I put anything else on it. Then you definitely need to go to hospital. Why did you come here first?"

"Stop being stupid," Sherlock said. Victor's fingers biting into his arm seemed to have galvanised him into action, or at least into advanced thought. "He clearly didn't lose his thumb in some senseless accident. Mr. Hatherley is a client."

Victor, nodding, took a shuddering breath and turned to Sherlock. "Oh, Mr. Holmes," he said. "You're not going to believe it when I tell you…"

Sherlock raised one eyebrow. "No," he said. "I really think I will."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** The Engineer's Thumb is, of course, an ACD Sherlock Holmes story. The pitchfork murder in Lower Quinton is based on a real unsolved case from 1945._

 _For the foreseeable future, anyhow, this marks the end of the 'After the Fall' series._

 _I'm considering writing a Lestrade prequel/parallel series, starting from before_ A Study in Pink, _in which Lestrade, Donovan etc solve the crimes Sherlock Holmes is too bored or high to be bothered with. But if it happens it'll be a while, and I can't see too many supporters for it, except career Lestrade fans :p_

 _Thank you, sincerely, to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed or faved any part of this, especially the amazing and deeply appreciated little band of diehards who've been following this AU journey for something like 650,000 words._

 _I'll continue to edit and improve the previous fics in the existing series, though, until they're the way I want them. I actually dropped off entire subplots in The Somerton Man and On the Sixth Day to save time/because I'm lazy, so I'll be doing quite a bit of reconstructing, for people who want to (keep following?) me._

 _A couple of people have asked if I'd consider writing to Season 3 and Season 4 canon. While I didn't *hate* Season 4, I was deeply disappointed in what a downer the entire misery-fest was, and in some bizarre character derailments/backstories that went on, some of which don't… quite… make sense to me. ;)_

 _Thank you, again and forever, for your support of this series. Love, Edhla xx_


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